Bendigo continues to increase it’s reputation as one of regional Victoria’s best sporting towns.
Although the Bendigo Easter Festival tends to dominate the Easter Break, the Festival had competition on Good Friday with the Central Victorian hub hosting the Oceania Table Tennis Olympic Qualification Tournament at the Ullumbarra Theatre.
Earlier in the week, Bendigo had also been the venue for the Oceania Championships, with the top six men and women from that competition going onto the Olympic qualifier.
Three men and three women from Oceania were then trying to qualify for Rio.
The most one country can have is two and Australia gave itself every chance by qualifying first and second for the qualification tournament in both the men’s and women’s draws.
Jian Fang Lay, the 43 year-old was aiming for her fifth Olympics and she took on fellow Australian Melissa Tapper to try and book the first Oceania spot.
Tapper also had a great story. She had represented Australia at the Paralympics as she suffers from nerve damage in her right arm and she was trying to be the first Australian athlete to make both the Olympics and Paralympics and the third overall from all countries.
There was also the battle between the third and fourth ranked players, the sisters from Fiji, Grace Rosi Yee aged 13 and her older sister, Sally, who is the ripe old age of 14.
Jian Fang Lay beat Tapper to qualify for Rio, after first wearing the green and gold at the Olympics in Sydney in 2000.
Tapper created history with her win over Grace Yee and then Sally beat her little sister to book the final spot in the women”s competition.
Like the women, the top three in the men also advanced including the two Australians, although the number two Australian David Palmer beat the higher ranked Chris Yan to qualify first.
Yan then defeated the New Zealander, TengTeng Liu, who avenged that defeat by qualifying, when he proved too strong for the passionate, Yoshua Sing of Vanautu, who had plenty of support in the excellent crowd that saw some wonderfully attacking table tennis.