At the start of the day, seven nations were in the hunt for the final ticket to Tokyo 2020 but just three remain with just eight countries progressing to the second and final round on Sunday (October 6). 

Carlos Enrique Lopez Lizarazo produced one of just nine clear rounds on the Real Club de Polo course as Colombia shared a tie of third place with Sweden.

Ireland placed fifth and Italy snuck into eighth place to stay in the hunt for a spot at the Olympics.

It was defending champions Belgium, though, who topped the leaderboard in Barcelona, ahead of France - both countries having already qualified for next year's Olympic Games. 

Peter Weinberg’s team of Olivier Philippaerts on H&M Extra, Pieter Devos on Jade V Bisschop, Jerome Guery atop Quel Homme de Hus and Gregory Wathelet with MJT Nevados racked up just four faults to secure pole position.

"We came here strong!" said Philippaerts. 

"We’ve had a great season so we wanted to come here with the best team possible and that’s what we did. 

"This was a tremendous start, going into Sunday it’s good for the confidence and now hopefully we can pull it off!"

The French quartet of Penelope Leprevost, Simon Delestre, Nicolas Delmotte and Mathieu Billot collected just five penalty to sit second ahead of the Colombian and Swedish teams in third spot with penalty points.

While the top eight have progressed to Sunday's final, the remaining nations - The Netherlands, Norway, United States, Japan, Britain, Brazil, Mexico and Egypt - will go forward to the Challenge Cup final on Saturday (October 5). 

Portugal have withdrawn from the competition after the opening day.