US qualification attracts controversy

Spains Fabio Diez, left, and Javier Bosma celebrate

Accusations are flying that organisers of the men's beach volleyball tournament have created a set of qualifying rules that made it an advantage for competitors to lose.

One Spanish qualifier, Fabio Diez even went so far as to deride the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortus.

"It's not faster, higher, stronger. It's lose," said Diez after American pair Kevin Wong and Rob Heidger qualified for the last 16 despite losing to Australians Julien Prosser and Lee Zahner in controversial circumstances.

As Lucky Losers, Wong and Heidger will gain a more favourable draw against rank outsiders Mexican part-timers Joel Sotelo and Juan Ibarra, instead of one of the top-ranked Brazilian pairs, despite winning just one of their three qualifying round matches.

Upset

The problems began when top seeds Prosser and Zahner lost in an upset to Sotelo and Ibarra, who advanced in number one position, to the Sweet Sixteen, which is made up of the winners from the first twelve matches, the three unbeaten teams in the repechage and one Lucky Loser.

The Lucky Loser is the team winning only one of their games in the repechage with the best points for-and-against ratio. The Lucky Loser enters the Sweet Sixteen in 16th spot and plays the number one team - in this case, Ibarra and Sotelo.

With Sotelo and Ibarra waiting, the temptation was always there for a team to deliberately drop a match, and Wong and Heidger are accused of doing that.

At one stage they led the number one seeds nine points to four, only for their game to apparently crumble its way to a 15-11 defeat, by which time they had scored the nine points they required to qualify on their points ratio.

After the match, Prosser was convinced the Americans had not played at their best, saying: "Lee and I know that it wasn't just us getting the points. It was a good bit of acting from us and a good bit of acting from them."

Stupid system

Brazilian coach Jim Menges believed the US team would: "get to fourteen and just walk off the court," while Czech Republic player Michal Palinek, who lost in the final repechage match, said: "It's a stupid system, it's not an Olympic ideal. It's better to lose and that is very bad."

Heidger and Wong insisted they had done nothing wrong and were unaware that once they had passed the nine point mark they were guaranteed the Lucky Loser berth.

Heidger said: "I thought that we came out early and played well but they just came back strong later in the match."

Beach Volleyball World Council president Sinjin Smith admitted the draw wasn't: "an absolutely perfect system," adding: "we felt it was the best system with the least chance to manipulate."