Warmup matches are wrapping up on Thursday on the Gold Coast at the 2018 Commonwealth Games with official competition set to begin Friday, April 6th, but 2 participants in the first-ever beach volleyball tournament at the Commonwealth Games competition have already taken to center stage. St Clair Hodge from Saint Kitts and Nevis and Miller Pata from Vanuatu both carried their nations’ flags in Wednesday’s opening ceremonies.
Both are making their Commonwealth Games debuts, as are all of the beach volleyballers in this week’s tournament by default. Pata, representing Vanuatu in the women’s tournament, will play with her partner Linline Matauatu in this week’s tournament. The two have already had success this year, finishing 5th in the FIVB World Tour 1-star event in Shepparton, Australia in February, though they’re not expected to medal at the Commonwealth Games. The two are ranked tied for 282nd in the world. According to bvbinfo.com, she’s earned $71,950 in her career, including two wins on the now-defunct FIVB C&S developmental tour in 2012 and 2014. Pata and Matauatu qualified via their World Ranking.
Hodge, who will represent Saint Kitts and Nevis in the men’s tournament, qualified via ranking in the NORCECA Beach Volleyball Tour, which comprises teams from North America, Central American, and the Caribbean. He’ll play with Shawn Seabrookes, a player with whom he partnered early in his career but with whom he hasn’t played on the NORCECA tour since 2012. The pair finished as high as 9th in 2008 at a NORCECA tournament in Puerto Rico while playing together. Seabrookes hasn’t toured much internationally since the two broke up (he’s 38 years old), but is returning to elite competition for this tournament.
The Commonwealth Games are a quadrennial hosting of mostly ‘summer’ sports hosted in even years aligning with the Winter Olympics (or, opposite of the summer Olympics). Dating back to predecessor events the British Empire Games (1930-1950) and the British Empire and commonwealth Games (1954-1966), the event brings together remnants of the once-vast British empire. Among the quirks of the competition are that each of the United Kingdom’s current countries competes independently, meaning that athletes get the rare opportunity to represent the four home nations England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland in international competition – common in sports like soccer and rugby, but less-so in volleyball, where many are being called the “first ever” beach volleyballers from those respective home nations. The list includes some even lesser-known dependent nations like the Isle of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey. Participation is ostensibly open to members of the Commonwealth of Nations, but 71 nations participate as compared to just 53 members of the Commonwealth of Nations due to a number of dependencies fielding independent teams.
There are 22 sports and a further 7 para-sports approved by the Commonwealth Games Federation. There are 19 Core sports that must be included in every edition, and an additional 13 sports that the host nation may select from. These option sports include beach volleyball. A 20th core sport, judo, will be added to the schedule in 2022. Many of the sports are current Olympic sports, while others, including lawn bowls, squash, cricket (only included in 1988) and netball, are more unique to the Commonwealth Games based on the cultural preferences of the former British empire.
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