Cincinnati, USA, May 20, 2016 – Sam O’Dea and Michael Watson are doing their best to spread the word of beach volleyball around their sports-mad homeland of New Zealand.
The pair are currently in action on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour at the Cincinnati Open, though their focus is firmly on qualifying for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games.
O’Dea and Watson will compete in the AVC Continental Cup Final that will take place in Cairns, Australia from June 20-26 and which will earn the winning nation a berth at Copacabana Beach.
“We are focusing on going to Rio and then we’ll switch our aim to the (2018) Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast and hopefully we can keep riding the wave of success,” Watson said.
“Often we’re tired from training and our fuses are a little bit short, but we know we have the same goal, which is to go to the Olympics.”
The pair began playing together at high school, where like most children in New Zealand they competed in a wide variety of sports.
O’Dea has sporting genes as his grandfather Bob O’Dea played rugby union for New Zealand’s world famous All Blacks teams, but took to beach volleyball as soon as he tried it and now their aim is to help introduce more young New Zealanders to beach volleyball.
“Hopefully we can keep riding the wave of success,” Watson said. “All we need is a beach, a net and a ball and us being successful has a domino effect on the rest of the kids to help them be more successful.”