Beach Volleyball: Tough road travelled by Olympic duo

YOUTH OLYMPIANS: Rotorua's Kahurangi Robinson (left) and Mount Maunganui's Nate Moore are going to Nanjing in China in August. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Young beach volleyball player Kahurangi Robinson is off to the Youth Olympics to represent New Zealand.

The Western Heights High School athlete returned home from Thailand this week after qualifying for the Nanjing Youth Olympics (China) in August.

Robinson, 17, and volleyball partner Nate Moore, 17, from Mount Maunganui, had a tough task ahead of them in Khanom, Thailand last week.

They had to finish in the top six, out of 15 Asia-Pacific nations attending the qualifying tournament, for a place at the games.

Drawn in a tough pool, they battled against Chinese Taipei, Iran and Singapore for a spot in the quarter finals.

Needing to win at least two of those three matches, they got off to a bad start losing their first match to Chinese Taipei.

"That meant we had to win our other games if we wanted a chance of qualifying," Kahurangi said.

They faced Iran in their second match and defeated them in three sets 17-21, 21-11, 17-15.

"That was a pretty mean game to win because in the third set they were wining 14-11. In the third set you only got to 15 points so they had three chances to kick us out, but we came back.

"After that we played Singapore and we really needed to win that game too."

They won the match in two sets 21-8, 21-14. The New Zealand pairing qualified for the quarter finals but lost to eventual champions Indonesia 21-16, 21-15.

It left them with a big match against Japan which they had to win to gain a place at the Nanjing Youth Olympics in China.

"The night before we played Japan we could not get to sleep because we were worrying about that game. So we had stuff all sleep."

Despite their concerns, they had a great performance and won the match convincingly 21-9, 21-10.

"When we won that game I was too tired to celebrate. But the next day me and my partner could not believe it."

The successful pair played one more match during the tournament, a playoff match for fifth and sixth, which they lost to Kazakhstan.

Robinson has represented New Zealand in indoor volleyball and basketball, and is also in the New Zealand AFL set up, but said the Youth Olympics would be the biggest stage he had competed on.

He said he would train with Moore every weekend in Tauranga in the lead up to the games, working with coach Darrell Boyd.

A total of 36 nations will compete in the boys' beach volleyball competition at the Youth Olympics in August.