06/06/2014 13:00
Beach Volleyball pioneer Solustri keeps on pushing for the sport to grow
2014 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Final
Cagliari, Italy, June 6, 2014. On Thursday two Russian pairs performed really strong ultimately topping the charts of their respective Pools in the women’s tournament of the 2014 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship – Final but on Friday they could not keep that pace and make the 1/4 finals. Alexandra Moiseeva and Ekaterina Syrtseva lost in two sets to Spain’s Liliana/Baquerizo and Evgenia Ukolova/Maria Prokopieva also did not perform their best in the match with Switzerland’s Tanja Goricanec and Tanja Hüberli which they eventually lost at the tie-break (21-17, 18-21, 4-15). These teams are currently mentored by one of the real pioneers of Beach Volleyball in Europe, Marco Solustri, who has toured the world and worked with teams from many different countries after retiring from competitive sport.
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Solustri returned back to Russia a couple of years ago after first working there with Dmitry Barsouk and Igor Kolodinsky who under his guidance won a silver medal at the 2007 World Championship in Gstaad. “We had a bad day and we did not play the way we should have,” Solustri commented after the matches played on Friday morning. “However, I remain confident since the trend looks positive and I have seen that things keep on improving since the start of the season. We still have to work hard but it’s a long-term process, a learning process, where you always have to take your lessons from any setback and move on to the next tournament knowing that you can improve on what you have achieved. There are always pros and cons like in anything else you do in life.”
There have been some changes in the composition of the Russian teams since last year: “We started working with a group of eight girls, but five are already gone. Three got pregnant and another two decided that they wanted to stop touring the world. We are missing two players who had showed a terrific potential: Ekaterina Khomyakova is going to deliver her first child in a couple of weeks, whereas Svetlana Popova has stopped playing, or better said, she is only participating in Russian competitions. However, our goals do not change: we want to qualify two teams for the next Olympics in Rio de Janeiro as we already did in London two years ago. Our work continues in spite of all these changes; it takes two or three years to develop a strong team, to find the chemistry that is needed in this sport. What I like the most is that, apart from absorbing my technical and tactical advices, the girls show a change in their attitude and mentality which for me testifies that they do want to pursue a professional career in this sport.”
Teams from Europe have never won an Olympic medal and last year Karla Borger and Britta Büthe claimed Europe’s best result at a World Championship settling for second place. “Right now we have seven, eight teams in Europe who can compete at the highest level,” Solustri says. “They are definitely better and stronger than the Brazilian pairs participating in the World Tour. What makes the difference, if you compare them with the likes of Walsh/Ross or the top duo from China, is that in Europe you can’t train outdoors all year round. You always have to find an alternative for at least a couple of months during the winter season, and this makes the difference in the end. If I have to single out the pairs that stand out right now, I would say that Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst and Madelein Meppelink/Marleen van Iersel have something more than all other teams. They are also the favourites to win the title here in Cagliari. Maybe the Czech girls, Marketa Slukova and Kristyna Kolocova, can cause a surprise as well; they are the outsiders, so to speak, in this race for the crown.”
Solustri also draws the attention on some problems that Beach Volleyball is still confronted with: “We still have only a very few players in each country who are able to compete internationally. In my opinion, if you want the sport to grow, we shall help and support National Federations so that in the end they can rely on some 30-40 players, who devote all of their time and energy to Beach Volleyball and do not combine it with anything else. However, with the current quotas in place, it is very difficult for up-and-coming teams to gain the experience they need on the international stage. This means that unless you mix pairs up and you use the points from a player who has more experience, our youngsters shall start from Satellite or Zonal events, and this slows down the emergence of the next generation of elite Beach Volleyball players,” he says. “I do understand that we have to work hard to make this sport as universal as possible, but where I disagree is that this happens by transferring the player’s allegiance from one country to another.”
Since the time Solustri played himself on the sand, the sport has undergone a tremendous development and transformation, both on and off the court: “Well, right now you have, especially among the men, some outstanding blockers. In my opinion, the very best player you can get to see is Paolo Nicolai, who combines extraordinary physical features with technical skills that you rarely find in somebody who is physically so talented and gifted. Our sport does not stop evolving, like any other discipline, but what I would really welcome is that we help all countries grow a wider base of Beach Volleyball players, and to make sure that young players get more opportunities to play on the international stage, something they really need in order to continue and speed up their personal development.”
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