By paralyzing sporting events globally due to the pandemic, the Dominican Republic had managed to qualify its women’s volleyball team and three taekwondo fighters at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, postponed.
In a qualifying tournament played in January in Santo Domingo, the ‘Queens of the Caribbean’ dominated without major problems the staffs of Mexico, Canada and Puerto Rico.
Thus, advanced for the third time to an Olympic Games, after his experiences in Athens 2004 and London 2012.
The Dominican volleyball players won the prizes awarded by the tournament, including the Most Valuable Player, which went to Bethania De la Cruz.
The ‘Queens of the Caribbean’, super popular in their country, hope that this classification will lead them to play a good role in Tokyo.
They hope to at least match or beat the London 2012 result, when it reaches the quarter-finals.
They had just won the gold medal at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima.
That same year they rose to the top of the podium in the Norceca Championship. There they beat the powerful United States team.
There are seven players on the squad who played for the London 2012 Olympic Games, as well as the coach, the Brazilian Marcos Kwiek, who believes that the team is more mature than four years ago and can aspire to medals.
The Dominican Republic finished ninth in the world ranking of the International Volleyball Federation (FIBV).
Last March, Katherine Rodríguez, Bernardo Pie and Moisés Hernández also won their tickets in Tokyo during the Costa Rica Taekwondo Open G2 2020.
Pie won his ticket when he defeated the Chilean Ignacio Morales 12-4, in a semifinal match in the 68 kg category.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez secured his trip to the Japanese capital after beating American Crystal Weekes 8-3 in a +67-kilogram fight.
The third Olympic place that so far registers the Dominican taekwondo was obtained by Hernández, in the same Costa Rican competition, when it doubled 13-7 in semifinals, to the Colombian Miguel Trejo in the -80 kilos.
The Dominican fighter won bronze at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima.