Alayo and Díaz in Jablonki
Havana, June 3 (ACN) -- The Cuban beach volleyball duo of Noslen Díaz and Jorge Luis Alayo won the silver medal in the Stare Jablonki World Pro Tour Challenge Tournament, in Poland, by falling in the final 1-2 to the Czech world champion duo of Onderj Perusic and David Schweiner.
According to the International Federation site www.fivb.com, Francisco Álvarez Cutiño's disciples lost the first set, 17-21, won the second (21-17), but the world champions secured victory in the third, 15- 11, with a highlight for Scheweiner, the game's top scorer with 30 points, 23 in attack and seven in blocking.
The official collective statistics of the match reflected that the Czech Republic was only below in the own errors that give goals to the rivals, 11 to eight, since they were better in the attack (35-32), the block (7-4) and service (2-1).
For Cuba, Alayo stood out individually (28/23-4-1), followed by Díaz (10/10-0-0), the latter behind Perusic (15/13-0-2).
Cutiño's pupils advanced to the discussion of the gold medal of the men's competition by defeating 2-1 (18-21, 21-19 and 15-10) the Argentine brothers Nicolás and Tomás Copogrosso, who were later surpassed for the medal bronze by the Netherlands duo, Boermans-De Groot, 2-0 (12-21 and 10-21).
This silver medal for Cuba's main duo guarantees that they remain in the classification zone – 17th place – in the Olympic classification ranking (7,800) points, with a 540 advantage over the duos of Austria and Chile.
The ranking will close on June 9 and will distribute 17 Olympic places for the best-placed pairs with the requirement of having at least 12 of the scoring events, but discounting the world champions. Each country will be able to present only two couples in Paris-2024.
Cubans also have the option of getting a ticket for the French capital's competition in the Norceca pre-Olympic, an event that will take place from June 19 to 24 in the Mexican city of Tlaxcala, where to achieve this they would have to climb to the highest top of the podium.
