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MEDIA COVERAGE
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Press Release 2-18-08
LOCAL FIL-AM VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS
LAUNCH FUNDRAISING EFFORT
Local Filipino-American Beach Volleyball Players Heidi Ilustre and Diane Pascua's quest to compete in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics for Team Philippines begins with fundraising and sponsorship assistance. The Southern California pair personally shouldered most of the 2007 travel and training expenses in their attempt to achieve qualifying status for Beijing. Pre-Olympic qualifying in 2008 will carry them to tournaments worldwide as they continue to play in FIVB sanctioned events required for Olympic qualification. Personal contributions and sponsorships are welcomed. San Diego based NuVasive, Inc., a medical device company focusing on the treatment of spine disorders, has signed on as a Title Sponsor with a sizable sponsorship donation to begin the quest.
Additional contributions are needed and can be made in a variety of ways: Through their newly launched internet fundraising effort at www.fundable.com, or by issuing a check to Elite Volleyball, P.O. Box 235043, Encinitas, CA 92023. All sources can be accessed at the players' website, www.teamphilvb.com.
A Gonzaga graduate, Pascua lives and coaches volleyball in Carlsbad. Playing partner and University of Hawaii alumni Ilustre lives in Redondo Beach. The pair are currently ranked 36th in the FIVB Olympic rankings and need to move up approximately 8 spots to qualify for Beijing. The 2008 Olympic qualification tournaments will take them to Europe and Asia during the pre-Olympic months, an expensive and time consuming process that doesn't allow the players to earn the money themselves.
The fundraising goal has been set to cover expenses such as travel, lodging, visas, training supplements, and coaching. The Country of the Philippines has agreed to assume the expenses after the players' qualify for Olympics. Donations big and small have been pledged including NuVasive's Title Sponsorship. Additional monies are needed for this exciting and groundbreaking effort. Information regarding sponsorships and donations is contained on their website, www.teamphilvb.com. No donation is too small.
A successful fundraising effort could catapult Heidi and Diane to Beijing as the Philippines National Beach Volleyball Team's first ever Olympic beach volleyball team!
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Article: Setting Sites On Beijing Olympics - DerkJohnsonBooks.com
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Filipina-Americans Hope Success Overseas Translates to Olympic Run |
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Filipina-Americans Hope Success Overseas Translates to Olympic Run
(Jan. 19, 2007) — Late last summer, Heidi Ilustre and Diane Pascua started to click. Now, four months later, their Olympic dreams are one step closer to reality thanks in part to back-to-back pro wins in the Southern Hemisphere.
Both standing at 5-feet, 10 inches, the ladies are fighting for a spot on the Philippines National Team for beach volleyball. In fact, Philippines Sports Commission chairman Butch Ramirez spilled the beans this week to ABS-CBN Interactive by naming both Ilustre and Pascua ”shoo-ins“ for Beijing.
They joined forces last July in Birmingham, Ala., and a week later they took 13th place in Chicago. The pair had their best finish, 9th, in Boulder, Colo., by the end of August, and they never finished higher than 17th.
The pairing was obviously a sign of things to come, as Ilustre and Pascua took their game overseas for FIVB Satellite events and, most recently, the five-event 2007 MORE FM Pro Beach Volleyball Tour presented by Volleyball New Zealand. USA’s Ashley Ivy and Tracy Lindquist topped Ilustre and Pascau Jan. 3 at Matarangi in the first women’s final. Lindquist and Ivy won the first set comfortably, with Ivy taking advantage of her powerful left-hand hitting, and Lindquist showing great speed in the back court. Pascua and Illustre took the second set, 21-15, before the U.S. team fought back to close out the match 15-8. A week later in Wellington, Ivy and Lindquist again dropped Illustre and Pascua, 21-13, 21-17.
But at the tour’s third stop in Whakatane, it was Ilustre’s and Pascua’s time to shine with a 19-21, 21-19, 15-11 victory over Ivy and Lindquist. And this past week, the Filipina-Americans returned to the top of the podium in Mount Maunganui. After posting an 11-21, 21-17 and 15-13 win in the semifinals over Ivy and Lindquist, Ilustre and Pascua dropped Susan Blundell and Anna Scarlett of New Zealand by a score of 21-12, 21-18.
The final New Zealand tour event was scheduled for this weekend in the ASB Tennis Centre in Auckland. Visit Volleyball New Zealand for more information on the tour.
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2-for-2 for RP beach-volley pair; medal chances ‘good’ |
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2-for-2 for RP beach-volley pair; medal chances ‘good’
By Jun Lomibao
Editor
DOHA—A supportive and boisterous crowd of about 200 Filipino volunteers put on the heat in a chilly December night for the pair of Diane Pascua and Heidi Ilustre, who completed a Philippine sweep of the beach volleyball first round of the 15th Asian Games.
Pascua and Ilustre, the Filipino-American pair, had to teeter though before beating Marina Storozhenko and Yelena Alenkina, the pair from a country that doesn’t have a beach at all—Kazakhstan.
The score went 21-15, 11-21, 17-15, pushing the RP pair’s supporters on the edge of their seats for most part of the match. Earlier in the day at the Sports City sand court, Parley Tupaz and Rhoyvi Velayo also won their initial assignment, 21-12, 21-14, over the Omani pair of Al Abri and Al Subri.
Mode of play in beach volleyball is double eliminations. Thus, according to Tony Liao, a technical delegate of the international volleyball federation, both pairs have strong chances to get a medal.
Although the men have India as their next foe, a relatively easy task, the women have to dig deep in their arsenal—and avoid certain lapses they had against the Kazakhs—when they meet a Chinese pair next Sunday.
Against the Kazakhs, Pascua and Ilustre had to shake off the stressful shadowing of their rivals to snare the first set, where they hardly led by more than five points. In the second set when they looked pretty for a sweep, the Kazakhs found their rhythm back and zoomed to 13-4. They did not let their lead go down to a single digit after that.
”They figured us out,“ said Pascua, whose partnership with Ilustre was forged in last year’s Southeast Asian Games. ”But thank God the crowd was wonderful and they got us going.“
The crowd erupted in cheers each time the RP pair scored. And because beach volleyball allows the playing of lively music, the fans—and even chief of mission William Ramirez and PSC commissioner Ritchie Garcia and equestrian champion Mikee Cojuangco Jaworski—could have gone to a partying frenzy during the match.
Pascua later admitted though they had to squeeze through with the win.
”We needed a lot of nerves,“ she said, ”but we enjoyed the match.“
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