Women’s Volleyball teams prepare for the 2011 FIVB World Grand Prix
The 2011 FIVB World Grand Prix is just around the corner as the women’s elite international volleyball event is scheduled to run in the next month from August 5 to 28 with sixteen teams. National Volleyball squads from Argentina, Brazil, China, Cuba, Dominican
Republic, Germany, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Peru, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Thailand, and United States have been divided into four pools, where each pool consists of four teams.
The U.S. team will enter the competition as defending champion after they defeated eight-time gold-medallist Brazil in the previous edition of the tournament. Team Italia finished third and held the bronze medal at 2011 FIVB World Grand Prix.
Initially the tournament will be kicked off with a preliminary robin round, which will complete it length over three weeks. Several cities will have the chance to put up a show for volleyball enthusiasts from around the world. First week matches will be
held in Poland, Thailand, Korea and China. In the next week, Kazakhstan and Japan will replace Thailand and Korea as hosts. Third-week match are planned to be staged in Hong Kong, Thailand and Japan.
The final round of the championship will be played in Macau, China from August 24-28.
The practice and training sessions are currently underway as all participating teams are focused on catching the spotlight during the competition. Polish Volleyball Federation has hired a new head coach for the women’s national team. Alojzy Swiderek has
been named as the new coach of the Polish Team and this news was made public in the second week of July. Poland has gone without any medals in this particular event and are looking to there new coach to guide the team onto the podium.
The German National squad is also undergoing extensive training in order to get ready for the big games ahead. The 26-year old captain of the German team, Christiane Furst, has high hopes to get to the finals of the championship. She disclosed her views
to media after attending the Montreux Volley Masters last month. She stated: “This year the Grand Prix is really important for us for leading to the Olympic Games. We have three weeks of tough groups against teams like Brazil and USA. But we hope we can make
the final.”
As always, Team Brazil is the top-contender in the tournament. The South American Team lost the final battle to their U.S. archrivals last year but they are fully prepared to seek revenge. On the other hand, U.S. Team has ambitions of keeping the title in
their custody. The other teams in the tournament will also be looking for glory on centre court.
Tags: