The young Cuban beach volleyball couple made up of Jorge Luis Alayo and Noslen Díaz repeated this weekend the silver medal they won in the previous competition, although like the one they won seven days ago, they did not manage to improve their position in the temporary list towards the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

In the Saquarema 2024 World Pro Tour Challenge, the Cubans lost in the finale against the hosts George Souto and Andre Loyola, who beat them in three hard-fought sets (21-18, 17-21 and 19-17).

It was the third duel between both pairs in recent months, since let’s remember that they were in a couple of matches at the XIX Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile 2023, with Díaz and Alayo winning in the qualifiers, and the Brazilians in the finale.

Important in this event is that they recovered from an initial setback against another home duo, Vinicus Freitas and Frank Heitor, to advance to the direct elimination phase and reach the title discussion, including an important success against the renowned Brazilians Pedro Solberg and Gustavo Carvalhaes, fifth in the 2023 world competition and top favorites in Saquarema.

They also managed to get rid of the Austrians Julián Hört and Alexander Horst, who appear in 11 position in the world ranking, with 7,260 points.

However, being a second-level competition in terms of granting points, they did not improve their position on the world ranking and remain outside the Olympic spots.

The limit now is set by the 6,080 points of the Norwegians Anders Berntsen Mol and Mathias Berntsen, while Alayo and Díaz now have a total of 4,140 accumulated points.

However, ours are the ones with the most room for improvement, since only eight tournaments are counted in that total, and there must be 12 to make the cut to Paris.

In fact, of all those who are ahead of them, they are the ones who have played the least, with the same number of another couple from the Netherlands who would not go to Paris because there are already more than two pairs from that nation above them.

This means that when those who are above them have their score reduced to 12 competitions, it’s possible that they will find themselves higher, and that’s why although the distance of almost two thousand points towards the Paris ticket may seem like a lot, the real distance is not so much .

On the horizon our team has other tournaments like the one in the Dominican Republic (April 5-7), part of the Norceca Continental Tour, and they will close this crucial stage through America in Mexico, first in Guadalajara (11-14) and then in Tepic (17-21), the latter in the Elite16 category, the one that awards the most points to teh Olympic Games.

We all knew that this great couple needs more matches, and they know that they can stand up to anyone in the world.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff