The 2013 VELUX CEV Men’s European Champs is just hours away!
Are you READY?
Below are some tourney articles released by cev.lu & eurovolley2013.dk:
Herning to see four equally ambitious teams battle for spot in next round.
The gold medalists from the past edition, Serbia, will open the program of prelim Pool C in Herning on Friday afternoon as the guys mentored by Igor Kolakovic play Slovenia. The Netherlands and Finland will cross their ways for the second match of the opening day in a group where all teams and their respective head coaches sound ambitious and hopeful to make it to the Playoffs if not directly to the 1/4 finals coming up next week in Aarhus.
“The first game is always very important. My team is ready and I expect we will play good Volleyball. We’ve played good friendly games lately and we want to start with a victory and get the good energy for the whole tournament” Finland coach and former international star Tuomas Sammelvuo said. “Having played with my players the last few years I know them all personally and it’s completely different being on this side. I try to motivate the team and get the best from each individual player for the benefit of the team. We expect to play well, because we get good results when we play the Volleyball we know we can play. We are happy that up to 400 Finnish spectators will support us. It’s great to have a big crowd of Finnish people here and we want to go through to the quarterfinals and then it’s one game from then on; that is our goal.
“We’ve been happy and lucky to complete a good preparation period of two months without any major injuries which have been a major concern for our team the last few years. We are happy to be here with a full squad and we have extremely high hopes and think only of the best and we will be very disappointed if we leave Denmark too early” added Slovenia head coach Luka Slabe. “I think it is a really strong group here in Herning. All the teams besides us have had some great success in international Volleyball. Serbia is the defending champions, the Dutch are former Olympic champions and are getting better all the time and both them and Finland were successful in the World League, so it’s an extremely challenging group and I don’t think any of these teams will get their final answer before Sunday. It will be close match ups every night and it will be really exciting for Volleyball fans to follow. For our team we always speak of highest expectations only. We have a very young and talented group. It will be a huge disappointment for us if we don’t go to the quarterfinals and it’s the only way we will think.”
“Our group is very tough and the opponents have good national teams. It will be a difficult task to reach our goal – we want to play in the semi-finals, but it will be very difficult” stressed Serbia mentor Igor Kolakovic. “We have had a very good preparation with a lot of friendly games event though it is not the same situation as competition games. We will see what happens after the first ball. Our main goal is the quarterfinals which is a very important game because after that it is the medals. Every ball and every set is important to us”.
“We have prepared very well. This year we played World League after three years of absence. We played very well in our group and then we started our preparations with the same players and we had some tough matches against Germany and France. We also played a tournament in Poland which was very successful. We played well against Poland but lost 3-1, and the second day we won 3-0 over Russia in a great match that gave us a lot of self-confidence. We have done everything we could and look forward to meeting all these big teams” said Edwin Benne mentor of Netherlands. “The first goal for us is not to be fourth in the group so we go play by play and game by game. In this group I don’t expect a team that really stands above the other ones. That is actually really nice because you have to play really well and be good in every game to qualify. There are no easy matches in this Championship, you have to be ready for that. Our goal is to be among the top eight and then see what happens. Playing a Championship like this against big teams is not easy and we have to prove that we are ready. We have changed a lot in our team the last two years and we have a lot of young guys and for many it is their first Championship ever. I’m really positive about it but we are not that experienced so we have to see how it goes”.
Voices from Odense waiting for Denmark’s debut
Odense and the local Fyn Arena are also well ready to welcome the VELUX EuroVolley 2013 and especially the four teams competing in preliminary Pool A. Starting from Friday the hosts of Denmark will play Italy, Belgium and Belarus in what is their first appearance at the European Championship in more than 40 years.
US American Fred Sturm has been working with the Danish national team for the past ten years and is evidently excited about the home debut of his guys. “We are much honored to host here in Odense the prelims of the European Championship and the three teams assigned to Pool A” he said. “We have been working hard for the past five months and we feel ready to start this adventure. We want to play our best and I would like to see my team progressing through the tournament so that on Sunday I will be able to say that with Belarus we delivered our best performance. Whenever the Danish national team squares off, it always plays to win though of course we do respect our opponents. I just hope we will be improving set after set and match after match so that we can draw the line on Sunday with some positives from this adventure”.
Denmark will be playing Italy in their opening match on Friday evening at 20:45; the 2012 Olympic bronze medalists around head coach Mauro Berruto have undergone major changes with fresh blood injected into a group that includes 8 rookies. “I would like to thank the Danish Volleyball Federation for here in Odense we have found excellent conditions and anything you may ask for. That said, I know my players and can only say that we want to stay until the last competition day. We never want to leave the competition before this comes to its end. So our goal is to make the semis in Copenhagen and once we are there, anything can happen. Of course we want to win a medal but this depends on many factors that you can barely control. You need some luck, have to be in a great shape on that specific day and everything has come together right when it counts the most. We respect Denmark but we know that this is a must-win game. Belarus is not that well-known but they have some good players, especially Aleh Akhrem who has been playing in Poland for the past few years and regularly participates in the European Cups. Belgium had a great summer with their terrific winning streak in the European League but we know our value and of course our goal is to finish first in the group” Berruto said.
The winners of this year’s CEV Volleyball European League, Belgium, may want to emulate the fairy tale written by their countrywomen who won bronze at the European Championship in Berlin this past Saturday. “I have to say that we are glad for being here for we only made it after winning the golden set of the return game with Greece in the third qualification round” said Dominique Baeyens. “We had a great summer after that but you can’t compare the quality of the European League with a final round of the European Championship. I have seen that my team can fight back in any situation and we always want to win no matter which opponent stands on the other side of the net. We also will be taking it match by match, so our opening game with Belarus is the most important right now and we’ll apply the same principle to the next matches in the pool with Denmark and Italy”.
“We want make it to the next round; this is our goal in this tournament” said Belarus head coach Victor Sidelnikov. His team is participating in the final round of the EuroVolley for the first time since the Republic of Belarus emerged from the breakdown of the former Soviet Union in 1991. “Our campaign in the European League could have been a little better but since we played the last legs with only half of our best players, we simply could not achieve more than we did as we finished second in our group. Some of my guys played at the Universiade in Kazan, so I simply could not expect to reach more. We started our preparations for this European Championship on August 2 and we played many friendly matches. We also joined the Memorial Platonov tournament in Saint Petersburg which starred many teams from the Russian Superleague and also Ukraine’s national team. There we beat Zenit KAZAN and also Yaroslavich YAROSLAVL before we lost the final game to Belogorie BELGOROD, Russia’s national champions. We were planning to play some more matches with Sweden or Slovakia but our Federation does not have that much money, so in the end we continued our lead up to the Championship in Minsk and got the chance to play in Tallinn where we crossed our ways with two teams from Finland and another two from Estonia. As I said, our goal is to make the Playoffs, this would be a good result for Belarus, as unlike the women’s national team we never participated in the final round before”.
Gdynia welcomes “group of death”
“The winner of the gold medal in this tournament is most probably sitting at this table” said Germany head coach Vital Heynen while attending on Thursday the press conference that set the tone for the matches of prelim Pool D, the “group of death” at VELUX EuroVolley 2013. Heynen’s statement may sound as bit extreme but with Russia, Bulgaria, Germany and the Czech Republic all set to play in Gdynia, the quality in this group is absolutely outstanding.
“Our team is well prepared and we feel pretty good” said Russian team captain Sergey Makarov. “We have been waiting for this Championship to come and finally here we are. My teammates are fully aware of the challenges that are awaiting us. However, they are also ready to show their best and display their potential to go for yet gold after winning at the Olympics as well as the World League Finals. I wish all the best to all teams and would like to thank the local Organizing Committee for their warm hospitality”.
“Today we are all friends but tomorrow we’ll start a real fight” continued head coach Andrey Voronkov. “We will take up this challenge and try to progress match after match. We do not want to repeat the same mistakes we made in the World League or some of the last friendly games we have played. I do believe that the good atmosphere that we feel here will help us disclose the best of our sport and achieve our goals. The team is much focused and they know we have set the highest goals for this tournament”.
“We have received a very warm welcome here in Poland, we feel great and have gone through a very busy summer with some players added to the group” said Germany team captain Jochen Schöps. “We want to realize where we stand and show what we are capable of. We believe that we can achieve some good results. I agree with what the Russian coach said: today we are all friends, but tomorrow a tough competition will start”.
“I am pretty sure that the winner of this tournament is here with us today and this is going to be Russia” added his mentor Vital Heynen. “The second major competitor for gold is Italy. However, we recently beat them twice in Dessau so this means we also can perform well”.
“We are very glad for playing here especially for many fans will show up and follow the matches here in Gdynia” said Czech team captain Ondrej Hudecek. “We have gone through a very long and tough summer. Even though we are playing teams that all competed at the Olympics last year, I hope we can show a good performance here”.
“I am also very happy with the conditions we found here as Gdynia has a great venue where to host world-class Volleyball matches” added head coach Stewart Bernard. “As my friend from Germany said, maybe the eventual winner of the gold medal is sitting here with us. The results in this group may nevertheless be quite surprising. We are an outsider but willing to reach the highest goals”.
“We are also very happy for being here as we have worked very hard this summer” stressed Bulgaria team captain Todor Aleksiev. “We hope to show some great Volleyball and give our contribution to a great Volleyball show for all fans that will attend the EuroVolley”. “We finished fourth in the World League even though we had some players that were recently added to the roster” said Camillo Placi, the Italian-born mentor of Bulgaria. “We have good memories also from the Olympics and the 2011 World League Finals in Gdansk, but this is a totally different story. We obviously want to win a medal after many fourth places and in order to achieve this goal we need to stay focused on every single set and rally. This group is very tough and the first match may well influence the final standing”.
Gdansk ready to welcome Volleyball show of year
One day before the start of the VELUX EuroVolley 2013 the coaches and captains of the teams assigned to prelim Pool B did share their feeling and expectations in Gdansk. On Friday France and Slovakia will open the competition at 5 pm before the home heroes of Poland play Turkey.
“It is very nice to be here and to play a Volleyball tournament in a country like Poland” said Slovakia mentor Stefan Chrtiansky. “We hope that many fans will be coming to the sports hall not only for the matches of the home team. We have got some players who have been competing in the Polish national league and are well-known here, so hopefully the spectators will cheer on us too. This would help us achieve our goal which is to make it to the second round. We know this is a very tough task to stand but we have been working very hard to achieve this. We would like to confirm the fifth place we seized two years ago”.
“I am very happy to play with my national team here in Poland; that was a long time since we did it” said Slovakia team captain Michal Masny. “We have worked very hard in the lead up to the Championship and we want to perform our best here. We want to enjoy a great ambiance in the sports hall and with the help of the local fans I am sure that this tournament will turn into a real Volleyball show. We do hope to repeat the performance we achieved two years ago as Slovakia finished the European Championship in fifth place, their best result ever”.
“This place is simply the right venue for such high-profile tournament like the EuroVolley and everything is perfectly prepared. So I have to thank the local authorities here in Gdansk for their support” said Poland mentor Andrea Anastasi. “We are very excited and we can’t wait for the first game. I am happy with what we have done so far in our training sessions but we want to play and fight because this is what we like the most”.
“We will do our best to perform well here and delight our fans. Their support is quintessential to a good performance” added home captain Marcin Mozdzonek. “We did our job completing our preparations in Spala and we just can’t wait to start playing”.
With Turkey’s head coach and team captain Emanuele Zanini and Ulas Kiyak missing the press conference as their flight to Gdansk was delayed, France’s mentor Laurent Tillie was one of the last to take the floor. “There are only good teams here, well prepared physically as well as tactically. This means we will have a great tournament. I am very proud for being here, the city where the Solidarity movement got started and where Lech Walesa was born. Still time has come also to turn Gdansk into the place where Volleyball history will be written. The games with Turkey and Slovakia will be thrilling, so I hope that the fans will crowd the stands and won’t miss that opportunity”.
“I am also very happy for being here as we know that Poland is a real Volleyball country, well-known for the great atmosphere that the fans can contribute” added France setter and team captain Benjamin Toniutti. “However, we are not here for fun but for achieving good results. We are well prepared and though our first opponent, Slovakia, is very strong we feel ready to take on that match”.
Andrea Anastasi – “We are not afraid of anyone.”
With only two days to go for the debut of the home heroes on Friday at ERGO Arena – where Poland will play Turkey – many media got the opportunity to follow the last 30 minutes of Wednesday’s training session of the guys in red and white jerseys.
“I feel quite relaxed because I know that we did our job” said head coach Andrea Anastasi. “We evidently respect each one of our opponents but we are not afraid of anyone. I strongly believe in my players” continued the Italian-born mentor while addressing the journalists. The ERGO Arena is somehow a familiar place for the home guys who here played the finals of the World League in 2011.
“I must admit that this is my favourite hall and I am sure it will bring us luck” said middle-blocker Piotr Nowakowski.
Turkey qualified for the VELUX EuroVolley 2013 only via the third round where they needed a golden set to finally cruise past Latvia.
“Though they are not that strong on paper, we have to be very careful and play our best to bring it home” emphasized libero Pawel Zatorski.
Next to the journalists and TV crews, the Lord Mayor of Gdansk, Pawel Adamowicz, was also there to express a warm welcome to Poland’s national team and wish them the best of luck for the upcoming Championship.
EUROVOLLEY 2013 Hits The Streets Of Copenhagem: The Danish capital is gearing up for the championships with banners on Strøget and a popular try-it-yourself-sideevent on Nytorvs cobbles.
More than 160 countries cannot be wrong: Record TV-interest for VELUX EuroVolley 2013
More than 160 countries have bought the TV-rights to broadcast the 2013 CEV VELUX Volleyball European Championship – Men in Denmark and Poland the 20th-29th of September.
From Nepal to Nigeria, from Brazil to Burkina Faso, and from USA to Uganda. The TV-interest in VELUX EuroVolley 2013 in Denmark and Poland is massive. The more than 160 nations already ready to broadcast the forthcoming championship, is a much higher number than broadcasted the last championship in 2011.
Actually, these figures break the all-time records set two years ago as the European Championship.
“We are evidently overwhelmed with pride for our flagship tournament is set to be aired all over the world,” says CEV President André Meyer.
“We have to thank our partner Infront Sports & Media that was able to seal deals with as many as 32 TV stations, something that we did never achieve in the past. This means that there is a lot of interest for Volleyball out there and that the upcoming VELUX EuroVolley 2013 will be boosting the popularity of our sport and showcasing the quality and skills of Europe’s best Volleyball players”.
”This is a very clear signal of how big a sport event the European Championship in Denmark and Poland is. The whole world is following this championship from the first balls are served in Odense, Herning, Gdansk, and Gdynia and until the last ball has been spiked in the floor in Parken Stadium in Copenhagen,” says Mads Bang Aaen, local managing director of VELUX EuroVolley 2013.
To give the TV-viewers the best experience from the matches, a world class producer, that has e.g. produced the Olympics many times, is ready.
”There will be 14 cameras in action, when the matches of the histoic Final Four Weekend in Parken are played the 28th and 29th of September. That is as many cameras as there is used for producing a Champions League match in football. It will be a fantastic experience for the TV-viewers at home. But of course I hope, that as many as possible will come and cheer in the arenas and get a volleyball experience of a lifetime,“ says Mads Bang Aaen.
There are still more nations negotiating about TV-rights for VELUX EuroVolley 2013.
The Great Transformation of Parken Stadium
The 28th and 29th of September the eyes of the volleyball world will tune in on Parken – the Danish national football stadium. For the first time ever the stadium will be transformed into a volleyball arena, when the new kings of European volleyball will be crowned here at VELUX EuroVolley 2013. Get the overview of the massive makeover of Parken.
It is going to be a historic Final Four Weekend, when the semi-finals, bronze medal match and final at VELUX EuroVolley 2013 will be played in Parken. Normally the national football team plays their matches in Parken as well as Lady Gaga Justin Bieber and Coldplay throws concerts. Now it is time to play volleyball.
It is going to be a unique volleyball event that will set new standards for the execution of a European Championship.
“The Final Four Weekend in Parken is going to be historic. World class volleyball in a football stadium – that is something which echoes in not only all of volleyball Europe, but all of the volleyball World. The greatest stars in the greatest surroundings. It will be an experience you cannot miss out on,” says local Managing Director Mads Bang Aaen.
Besides world class volleyball in the one half of Parken arena, the other half will be transformed into a giant Fan Zone with music, food and activities where fans from all over the world can party together. Fans from more than 30 countries have bought tickets to the Final Four Weekend.
Complicated transformation
The transformation of Parken from a football stadium into a volleyball arena is a huge and complicated process. It takes no more than 72 hours from the first floor panel is laid to the last confetti is swept.
First of all the stadium will have to roll on its 14.000 m2 roof. The roof weighs 550 ton, about the same as 629 Fiat Punto 1,4 GT Turbos from 1995.
The roof is made of big white air pillows that works as a canvas and keeps out the rain. Before the roof is scrolled on, light and speakers are mounted on the roof, so it is ready to set the perfect atmosphere for the final matches of VELYX EuroVolley2013.
Where the official demand from CEV is that there is at least 12,5 meters from the court to the roof – Parken has massive 38 meters.
When the roof is on – no less than 11.000 m2 of floor panels is laid to cover all the grass. This may sound easy enough, but one of the challenges is that the field leans from the middle to the side. Therefore – in the half of the field where the volleyball arena is going to be – a custom made wooden plateau is being made to level the floor, so the volleyball court is all even.
For this matter, the European Volleyball Championship organization allied themselves with the former handball club AG Copenhagen that played Champions League handball against FC Barcelona in Parken last year. But there is an extra challenge compared to then, as there need to be mounted two net poles in the floor this time.
The challenge here is that Parken Stadium has heat in the grass, so it does not freeze in the Winther. For this reason it is not allowed to dig in the field, and this makes it hard to make sure that the net poles stand firm. Therefore the VELUX EuroVolley2013 organization has again been to the drawing desk and has built two special constructed iron plates with net poles holders of 735 kg each. These are built into the floor itself. When this is done, the volleyball net can carry more than 200 kg.
When the 40×26 meter wooden floor is laid it is time to put on the green and orange Gerfloor with sponsor floor stickers, Led-banners are build, a 50 m2 big screen in set up, 500 VIP-seats are build and 14-16 are mounted, before the transformation into a volleyball arena is complete and ready for the more than 200 journalist and fans from 31 countries can enter.
“We place the court really close to one of the tribunes in Parken, so we create an as intimate atmosphere as possible. Furthermore we build a mobile tribune in both ends of the court so the fans almost can taste the sweat of the players when they fight for gold and glory,” says Mads Bang Aaen.
When the last point is won, the last medal presented, and the last fan has left Parken – a huge amount of workers will start to pull down the volleyball arena and make Parken into a football stadium again, because the grass only can be covered in a short amount of time before it starts to be damaged. It will be 72 hour is the eye of a volleyball hurricane.
Click HERE to download app for Android Phones
Click HERE to download app for Android Phones
Click HERE to download app for Android Phones
Click HERE to download app for IPhones
Click HERE to download app for IPhones
Click HERE to download app for IPhones
A special auction is also part of the European Champs which feature volleyball jerseys from some of the world’s best players.
Check out the gallery…