Havana, April 19 (ACN) -- The Cuban beach volleyball duo of Noslen Diaz and Jorge Luis Alayo divided honors with teams from Germany and Mexico, in group D of the main draw at the Elite 16 tournament in Tepic, based in Mexico, and this Friday they will face the US team Partain-Benesh.

In their debut in the main draw, on Thursday, Francisco Alvarez Cutiño's disciples lost 0-2 to the German duo Ehlers-Wilckler, but later defeated the Mexican duo of Miguel Sarabia-Gabriel Cruz 2-0, according to the International Federation's website www.fivb.com.

The Cubans are looking for their Olympic qualification and have made outstanding performances in recent months, with two second places and a fourth in the World Pro Tour tournaments in Recife and Saquarema, both in Brazil, and in Guadalajara, Mexico, all scoring for the ranking with a view to the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

The ranking will close on June 9 and will distribute 17 Olympic places for the best-placed duos with the requirement of having at least 12 of the scoring events.

Diaz and Alayo are doing well in the world rankings and the Olympic provisional, although they also have other variants to get the Olympic ticket, one of them in the North, Central America and Caribbean Pre-Olympic (Norceca), scheduled from June 19 to 24 in Tlaxcala, Mexico.