By Aftar Singh. Thestar.com.my. Friday, August 11, 2000
PETALING JAYA: World women's volleyball champions Cuba are using the World Grand Prix Championships to fine tune their team for the challenge in the Sydney Olympics.
The Cubans have done consistently well in all the major tournaments in the world. They bagged the World Cup last year and the World Championship in 1998.
And in Sydney next month, they will be gunning for their third consecutive Olympic gold medal.
For the second leg of the World GP, which begins today at the Arena of Stars in Genting Highlands, Cuba will be up against China, the United States and South Korea. The tournament offers a total purse of US$100,000 (RM380,000).
Cuban team manager George Eugenio said that the World GP provided them the opportunity to gauge their strength against the other teams who would feature in the Olympics.
"The Olympics is a very important assignment for us and we are confident of winning our third straight gold medal after having won the World Cup in Japan lasy year,'' said Eugenio.
"We have nine players from the team who won the gold in the last Olympics (in Atlanta in 1996) and anything less than the gold will be a big letdown for us.''
The Cubans got off to a great start in the opening leg of the World GP in Thailand last week. They defeated defending champions Russia, Italy and South Koreans to win the tournament.
Their challenge in Olympics will be led by veteran Mireya Luis Hernandez.
"She is the most experienced player in the team, having played 203 international matches for the country,'' said Eugenio.
Cubans made a memorable winning debut in the 1993 World GP. They were the runners-up thrice (1994, 1996 and 1997) and finished third twice (1995 and 1998).
But they finished fifth out of eight teams last year and it was their worst result in the series.
In last year's tournament in Genting, they lost all their matches--against South Korea, Japan and Russia.
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