Third Grand Slam of the 2012 Season coming to Moscow – Volleyball news
The 2012 SWATCH FIVB World Tour is scheduled to make a stop in Russian capital Moscow for the third Grand Slam Beach Volleyball Tournament of the Season.
The double-gender Moscow Grand Slam will take place from June 6-12. The women’s competition will start on June 6, while the men will kick off the action with a delay of one day on June 7. Likewise, the women’s competition will be closed one-day before the
men’s final round matches.
Meanwhile, the city of Moscow is getting ready to host fifth consecutive FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour event on its ground. The playing area will be set at the Poklonnaya Gora, which is the perfect venue for such activity.
This edition of the Moscow Grand has extra importance because of the upcoming London Olympic Games. The tournament will serve as a qualification phase for the Olympics. The event will award Olympic ranking points to the successful duos.
The local duos are determined to take full advantage of the home support and do well in the tournament. In the women’s division, Russia will enter the Main Draw of Moscow Grand Slam with three duos. One of the teams has qualified for the competition via
wildcard. The wild-card entry consists of Maria Bratkova and Svetlana Popova.
Bratkova said she waited long to showcase her skills in front of the home fans. She thanked the local organisers of the event and the Russia Volleyball Federation for creating such beautiful opportunity for them. The emotional support of local crowd will
surely enhance the performance of Russian players, she said.
The men’s tournament will also have three Russian duos in the Main Draw. Quite similarly one of them has made it to the Moscow Grand Slam on wildcard.
American female duo of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh will enter the competition as the defending champions. On the other hand, Emanuel and Alison of Brazil will try to defend their legacy in the men’s competition.
The Director of the Moscow Grand Ilya Volodarsky was recently interviewed, where he revealed plans for the upcoming tournament.
He stated, “This year, as always, we will try to make the "Grand Slam" even more interesting for the spectators than in previous editions. The crowd will be awarded with a lot of surprises, including a drawing of travel vouchers to the Canary Islands, as
well as giant sculptures of volleyball players from the “FIVB Heroes” campaign.”
Speaking of the champions, he said, “All visitors will be able to be photographed against the backdrop of a 5m sculpture of Olympic champions Emanuel Rego from Brazil and Kerri Walsh from USA, as well as volleyball world champion Ekaterina Gamova from Russia.”
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