Mexico’s Lino Munoz gets Rio invitation

Phase III lists in the Race to Rio were released today and with New Zealand declining the invitation for Dylan Soedjasa to be the Oceania representative in the men’s singles, the spot has actually gone to Mexico’s Lino Munoz.

There were actually several Oceania shuttlers in the Olympic ranking lists on May 5th, when the Rio qualification period finished; however, Australia elected to use its quota of two continental qualifying spots for men’s and mixed doubles and Soedjasa did not meet the notoriously stringent New Zealand internal standards for Olympic participation.  Several other shuttlers from Tahiti and New Caledonia were actually under the umbrella of the French Olympic Committee and the top Tongan player, Metuisela Talakai Vainikolo, was ineligible as he had not entered the minimum 3 ranking events in the qualifying period.

Lino Munoz (pictured) was ranked #73 in the world on May 5th, just one spot below Czech Republic’s Petr Koukal.  Munoz, Koukal, and also Martin Giuffre of Canada are holding conditional invitations, which could be retracted in the event that Michael Fuchs, Zhang Nan, or Phillip Chew might elect not to use one of the two quota places each player has earned.

Photo: Yohan Nonotte / Badmintonphoto