Rio beach volleyball hopes to make mark

World U23 champion duo Nikki Laird and Mariafe Artacho are among four Australian teams looking to make a statement at this week's Oceania Olympic beach volleyball qualifiers.

The Cook Islands event acts as a prelim for the Asian Olympic qualifiers next year but as host nation Australia will be guaranteed starts.

Two men's and two women's teams are competing in Raratonga, including Laird and Artacho del Solar.

"This tournament is the best opportunity to prepare for the Asian Continental Cup in June next year, as its the only other time we'll play a tournament of the same style," Laird said on Tuesday.

"We're going into it with the same approach we'd look to take in the final tournament, so we can see what areas we still need the most improvement in to be successful."

Australia's top-rated women's team of Louise Bawden and Taliqua Clancy are practically guaranteed a Rio position because of their world ranking, throwing the race open for a potential second Australian team.

2012 Olympian, Becchara Palmer, who played with Bawden in London, is playing with Queensland's Jordan Mowen in Raratonga.

"I think that although we are still a fairly new pairing, we made some good progress on the Asian Tour so we would like to build on from that," Mowen said.

"It is also a very new but exciting experience to be playing as a big team with the other girls, so we would like to contribute our best performance so we can all reap the benefits."

In the men's competition, former Danish international Bo Soderberg and Perth's Cole Durant will be looking to consolidate their exciting results since coming together as a pair in recent months.

Australia's second men's team, Melbourne-based Joshua Court and Damien Schumann, will be looking to build on some reasonable recent results in Indonesia and Turkey.