England Juniors edging closer towards Youth Olympic dream
The young English beach volleyball pair from Richmond VB, London (Javier Bello and Joaquin Bello) is one step closer to completing their Olympic dream finishing 2nd at the u18 CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup qualifier – Pool F, which ended on Sunday in Larnaca, Cyprus. They will now progress to the Continental Cup finals next year with 16 other European Countries and the top 5 countries will qualify to the 2018 Youth Olympic Games Beach Volleyball tournament in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
England Juniors produced a strong display of attacking volleyball winning all four group matches beating Butt/Ritchie SCO (2-0); Ringøen/Brekke NOR (2-0), Skordis/Siapanis CYP (2-0), and then John/Pfretzschner GER (2-1) progressing to the final as top seeds. With both England and Germany qualifying to the finals next year John/Pfretzschner GER won the final match (2-0).
RVB Chairman David Rijvers was full of praise for the young team, adding: “I’m absolutely delighted and so proud for the boys, family and Volleyball England. I’ve been in English Volleyball a long time and this is another historic milestone for Volleyball England progressing to World Class Finals.
RVB has been growing a strong national junior beach volleyball programme in London and Surrey for male and female athletes and is also in discussions with partners to create a new world class 9 court beach facility (4 indoors) supported with further expert coaching and comprehensive scholarships at varies London & Surrey Universities partnering with RVB.
We have ambitious performance targets over the next four years and our training programme reflects this commitment investing in next new crop of junior players and continuing to develop our current talented athletes. Junior volleyball players can access daily training sessions and strength and conditioning sessions on a weekly basis. With the Olympic Youth Games next year it’s an incredibly exciting time for the Bello boys and RVB Beach!
CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup
A record-breaking number of National Federations – 42 – are set to participate in the second edition of the CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup, which will eventually determine the teams representing Europe in the Beach Volleyball competition of next year’s Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
As many as 38 National Federations registered for participation in the men’s competition, with the figure standing even higher – at 41 – for the women’s category. These numbers testify that Beach Volleyball is growing at all levels in Europe and the youngsters are ready to take to the sand, compete and try to fulfil their ‘first’ Olympic dream. Back in 2013, 32 and 34 National Federations had participated in the men’s and women’s zonal phase of the inaugural CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup.
Beach Volleyball made its first appearance in the programme of the Youth Olympics in 2014 in Nanjing, China where Russia’s Artem Yarzutkin/Oleg Stoyanovskiy won gold in the men’s competition and Germany’s Lisa Arnholdt/Sarah Schneider settled for the bronze medal in the women’s tournament.