13 countries drop out of Palembang beach volleyball comp

At least 13 of 22 countries have cancelled plans to take part in the Asia Pacific beach volleyball tournament in Palembang this month because of technical reasons.

“Many have expressed regrets about this. Some said their teams still had local tournaments to compete in,” committee deputy chairman Mudai Madang said Wednesday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

The other nine countries have already started to sent teams to Palembang. Besides Indonesia as the host country, the other participants are Australia, Hong Kong, Iran, Malaysia, Singapore, Oman, Thailand and Timor Leste.

Earlier, Indonesian Volleyball Association chairman Slamet

Mulyanto said this tournament could be tougher than the SEA Games because its participants were not only from ASEAN countries.

He added that the result of this tournament would be used to asses the readiness of the Indonesian beach volleyball teams to participate in the upcoming SEA Games, which is set to commence on November 11.