NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­pot­er

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

T&T se­nior women’s vol­ley­ball team, led by cap­tain Jali­cia Ross-Ky­dd, left ear­ly on Wednes­day morn­ing to con­test the NORCE­CA Fi­nal Four In­ter­na­tion­al League Qual­i­fiers to the qual­i­fy­ing com­pe­ti­tion to the FIVB Vol­ley­ball Chal­lenge Cup (VCC), of the Vol­ley­ball Na­tion League.

The four-team tour­na­ment, which serves off a busy sched­ule for the ‘Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers' takes place in Jua­na Di­az, Puer­to Ri­co from Fri­day (June 9) un­til Sun­day, (June 11) at the Do­lores Mar­tinez Col­i­se­um.

The tour­na­ment for­mat will see T&T, host Puer­to Ri­co, Cos­ta Ri­ca, and the US Vir­gin Is­lands com­pet­ing in a round-robin se­ries at the end of which on­ly the tour­na­ment win­ners will se­cure a tick­et to the pres­ti­gious Vol­ley­ball Na­tions League for­mal­ly call the FIVB Grand Prix.

Back in 2017, T&T un­der the su­per­vi­sion of coach, Cuban-born Fran­cis­co ‘Panchee’ Cruz, qual­i­fied for its first-ever ap­pear­ance in the FIVB Grand Prix and com­pet­ed against Aus­tralia, Cameroon and France at the then brand­ed by Min­is­ter of Sport Dar­ryl Smith the "Home for T&T Vol­ley­ball" at Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va.

In ad­di­tion, oth­er no­table ex­pe­ri­enced mem­bers of the se­nior team in­clude Ger­many-based Chan­non Thomp­son and for­mer Eu­ro­pean-based cap­tain Krys­tle Es­delle, while well-dec­o­rat­ed play­er Kel­ly-Anne Billingy-Ad­di­son makes a re­turn in a new role as the set­ter and along with for­mer ju­nior play­er Ma­ri­na Camps.

Al­so in­clud­ed on the ros­ter are USA-based uni­ver­si­ty stand-outs Aaliyah Alex­is, Tiana Mur­ray-Lewis, Kay­lon Cruik­shank, and Des­tiny Leon along with new­com­ers De­siree Don­ald, Joan­na Bel­mar, Shan­ice Cot­toy, Cheyenne Chin Choy, and T&T Ms Uni­verse rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tya Jane Re­my.

The team is coached by Saleem Ali, with his for­mer men’s na­tion­al team­mate Sean Mor­ri­son serv­ing as his as­sis­tant coach.

The team will be man­aged by Kam­la El­cock, while ref­er­ee Shel­don San­di­ford and T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTVF) pres­i­dent Daymi­an Stew­art al­so trav­elled as head of the del­e­ga­tion.

Pres­i­dent Stew­art said he is go­ing to Puer­to Ri­co to seek as­sis­tance ex­ter­nal­ly for the ath­letes and to ac­quire equip­ment to main­tain T&T's high­ly ranked pro­grammes.

Stew­art said his or­gan­i­sa­tion is strug­gling to put it­self in prop­er or­der whilst main­tain­ing the ac­tiv­i­ties which have made T&T very proud on many oc­ca­sions and con­tin­ue to pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties to young na­tion­als.

The ath­letes raised funds to pur­chase their uni­forms and the board ne­go­ti­at­ed a loan to pur­chase the tick­ets and cov­er reg­is­tra­tion to rep­re­sent this coun­try.

In ad­di­tion to the Na­tions League qual­i­fiers, the Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers will al­so com­pete at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in San Sal­vador, El Sal­vador from Ju­ly 1-9; the Se­nior Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) Cham­pi­onships in Para­mari­bo, Suri­name from Ju­ly 21-31; the Pan Amer­i­cans Cup in San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co, from Au­gust 4-14, and the NORCE­CA Women’s Con­ti­nen­tal Cham­pi­onship in Cana­da from Au­gust 24 to Sep­tem­ber 5.

Ac­cord­ing to Stew­art, the na­tion­al women’s team by their FIVB rank­ings have qual­i­fied for these events, with the re­ten­tion of the Caribbean Cham­pi­onship the TTVF’s main pri­or­i­ty as this tour­na­ment opens the path­way to all the oth­er events.

He added, “Par­tic­i­pa­tion at the high­er-lev­el events, whilst win­ning is not re­al­is­tic; valu­able rank­ing points are earned, and our ath­letes gain op­por­tu­ni­ties for Pro­fes­sion­al Con­tracts and Uni­ver­si­ty Schol­ar­ships.”

Tour­na­ment sched­ule

Fri­day (June 9):

Cos­ta Ri­ca vs T&T, 6 pm

Puer­to Ri­co vs US Vir­gin Is­lands, 8 pm

Sat­ur­day (June 10):

US Vir­gin Is­lands vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, 6 pm

Puer­to Ri­co vs T&T, 8 pm

Sun­day (June 11):

T&T vs US Vir­gin Is­lands, 6 pm

Puer­to Ri­co vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, 8 pm