It’s not the 2012 preparation you’ve seen at the movies, we’re talking about how British volleyball players and the Federation are preparing for the 2012 London Olympics. It’s great to know that they working, training and preparing hard for the Olympics.
A very reliable source from the UK has sent us these updates.
Great Britain Volleyball
With London 2012 on the horizon there’s a hell of a lot of buzz over here within the volleyball community about the fact that all these amazing world class volleyballers, both beach and indoor are about to land in our laps! The 2012 games also provide GB volleyball with the chance to put itself on the map, both internationally and also within the UK (in growing the sport and encouraging kids to take it up alongside the more traditional sports of soccer and rugby).
To give you a flavour:
GB Men’s Indoor
Weren’t even a team 5 years ago, when the games were announced the GB Volleyball Federation was created bringing together the home nations England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The team has been on a long journey since, which has seen the players playing all over Europe (at this time there are more British men playing pro then at any other time!). This past summer, the boys competed at the CEV Euro League picked up a few good results like a 3:2 win against Spain in Madrid!
This summer with a very young squad Harry Brokking (Dutch coach) has led the boys to 4 wins out of 4 against Norway, and won against Croatia (in Euro League) and China (seeded 11th in the world, GB are 94th currently).
GB Women’s Indoor
The girls were in Argentina & claimed bronze in a tournament in Peru (beating Thailand and Chile). Might be a good angle for your US followers here actually. Three of the players have been involved with NCAA – Lizzie Reid @ University of Georgia, Ciara Michel @ University of Miami, and Janine Sandell @ University of Washington. The girls have had to do a lot of the fund raising for their Olympic journey themselves, undertaken various ventures including a 250 mile cycle ride from their training centre in Sheffield to the site of the Olympic stadium in East London.
GB Men’s Beach
3 pairs currently vying for probably 2 spots on Horses Guard parade. The number 1 pair at the moment is Robin Miedzybrodzki and Tom Lord. I played for England Students with Tom, and Scotland Young Seniors with Robin. Both are good mates. They have had to put up with all funding being cut, meaning they are in effect paying their way around the world playing FIVB events to get qualify & prepare for the games! They’ve also filmed a couple of cool documentaries which went out on BBC over here. Might be interesting to include.
GB Women’s Beach
2 pairs are pretty much nailed on for a place at 2012. Both are having great success on the tour with Zara Dampney & Shauna Mullin picking up several wins, and a career best 9th overall finish this season, and Lucy Boulton & Denise Johns (also a US citizen!) qualifying for every tournament entered and beating some notable names.
As you can see we’re pretty into our volleyball over here in the UK, and I know all the guys involved with GB are looking forward to surprising a few people come next year. From a fan/amateur players perspective its great to know that we have the opportunity to further our sport & hopefully grow it past just the Olympics next year.
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Thank you for the updates The Source!
We wish everyone the best and we’re very excited to see what they have in store for us at the Olympics.
(images: CEV/ brodzkibeach.co.uk/2uptop.com)