Full on schedule just part of tough road to Olympics

OLYMPIC HOPEFUL: Rotorua's Melissa-Mae Ruru is following her dream of competing at the Rio Olympics. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

BEACH volleyball player Melissa-Mae Ruru has a slightly different schedule to most Olympic hopefuls.

On top of her busy training regime, she is also working full-time as a police officer in Rotorua, studying towards becoming a detective and also manages the Sykes Boxing Gym. Despite her "full-on" schedule she said it was well worth it to try and represent her country at the Olympics.

"It would mean everything. It is every athlete's dream to get there and I'm going to try and get there, and come as close as I can."

To get to Rio in August, Ruru and beach volleyball partner Shannen Bagge (Tauranga) need to go through some tough qualifying events in Thailand in May and Australia in June. They need to finish top three at the first qualifier then win the next event in Australia.

"It is tough but it is realistic, we wouldn't be going if we didn't think we could get there. So we are pretty excited, we are just getting better and better," she said. "We are really happy with how we are going and have a good understanding of what we have to do."

Ruru, 31, was first introduced to volleyball during her years at Western Heights High School. She moved south to Dunedin to play professional netball with the now defunct Otago Rebels franchise, before moving to Tauranga for a year where she fell in love with beach volleyball.

"That is when beach volleyball really kicked off for me. And then when I joined the police they were very supportive of that. So I thought I will just keep going with it," she said.

She said giving up netball to focus on volleyball was not as tough as people might think.

"I could only do one or the other, and you can't beat travelling the world and seeing all the beaches and being outdoors in the sun, compared to being inside in a gym playing netball."

Ruru explained her dream of competing at the Olympics started about four years ago.

"Maybe around the time of the last Olympics. We were just competing really well against international, professional athletes and I suppose that is what planted a seed about four years ago.

"And I thought I'll see how the next three or four years go and see where I am at injury-wise and how work is, but it has all worked out pretty well."

Volleyball NZ will send Ruru and Bagge to Sydney at the end of this month for a warm-up tournament before the qualifying event in Thailand. Ruru said she and Bagge had been working well together since teaming up at the start of this season.