Major, businessman team up for Angola

BEIJING (Reuters) - Morais Abreu and Emanuel Fernandes are about as amateur as modern day Olympians come.

During the week, Abreu imports and exports food in Luanda while Emanuel Fernandes serves as an army major.

Only at the weekends have they been training to become Angola's first Olympic beach volleyball team.

"This has been a dream for such a long time," Abreu told Reuters after their first game in Beijing.

"We've worked as hard as we could to get here but we hope it is just the start of younger Angolans coming to the Olympics. That's the master plan," he added.

At 40 and 41, Abreu and Fernandes are the oldest beach volleyball players in Beijing and only decided to try and make the Games last year as the qualification process started.

They played the tournaments they needed to but trailed the pack widely in terms of results, garnering just 204 points against 1,980 for the next lowest team but just ahead of the South Africans.

Under Olympic rules for the event, every continent should be represented if they have a team.

Abreu and Fernandes hope their Chinese adventure will inspire children in Angola to take up beach volleyball and attract investment in the sport.

For all its 1,600 km of coastline, Angola has very few facilities and is relying on other players like Spain's Pablo Herrera and Raul Mesa to send them basic equipment like balls.

"The bets are not on us but on our young," said Fernandes. "Who knows what this could start."

(Editing by Steve Ginsburg)

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