Youth volleyball team leaves for World Champs

THE Namibian Youth Boys’ Beach Volleyball team left for the FIVB Youth World Championships on Sunday.

The team consists of Tin Hlupic and Gerard Fischer and is being accompanied by Antero Epifanio as coach.
Hlupic and Fischer will be the first team representing Namibia in the Youth Beach Volleyball World Championships.
“This is a great opportunity for the pair to gain very important international experience, which will be critical in their further development as players,” said NVF president Heiko Diehl.
“We are also very happy to have Kia Motors sponsoring the team with further support by Windhoek Consulting Engineers and Hüster Machine Tools,” he added.
Hlupic and Fischer won the Zone VI qualification tournament for the African Beach Volleyball Cup, which was held in March 2012 in Swakopmund. At the tournament the pair beat the top youth teams from Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Subsequently Namibia was the host for the African Youth Beach Volleyball Cup for countries from Zone IV to VII.
This event was the official qualification tournament for the World Youth Beach Volleyball Championships to be held from July 11 to 14 in Cyprus.
None of the other countries entered for this competition arrived in Namibia for the tournament, giving Namibia automatic qualification for the upcoming World Championships.
The Namibian Volleyball Federation selected Hlupic and Fischer to the national team to represent the country at these World Championships.
The 2012 Swatch Youth World Championships will be held for the best players from all the five continents aged under-19 and will kick off on Wednesday, July 11 in Larnaca, Cyprus.
Larnaca is the second largest city in Cyprus with a population of over 70 000, situated on the southern coast. Cyprus hosted FIVB Challenger events in 2006, 2007 and 2008, as well as a number of CEV Satellite tournaments. Updates on the team’s performance will be available on the Namibia Volleyball Facebook page: www.facebook.com/namibiavolleyball. The team is expected back in Windhoek on next week Monday, 16 July.
– namibiasport.com.na

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