05/05/2014 14:00
Icelandic teens excited about their participation in Antalya Satellite
2014 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite Antalya
Antalya, Turkey, May 5, 2014. Once they take the court later this week at the venue set up at WOW Hotels, Berglind Jonsdottir and Elisabet Einarsdottir will turn into Iceland’s first Beach Volleyball team to participate in a CEV Satellite tournament. It will be history in the making after the two players from Iceland received a wild card to enter the Main Draw of the season opener taking place in Turkey’s most popular seaside resort.
Elisabet and Berglind started playing five years ago when they were 10 and 13 respectively. Though they would like to pursue a career in Beach Volleyball, they still combine it with other duties, inter alia by playing indoors during the winter season. “We play for the same club and this year we won Iceland’s national cup before losing in the semis of the playoffs,” they say.
Though they are some kind of novices, the CEV Satellite in Antalya will not mark their international debut. “I already participated in three different competitions, Berglind in two and last year we played together as we won a NEVZA tournament for the U19 age group,” says Einarsdottir. “Our participation in the CEV Satellite in Antalya will be a totally different experience. We want to play our best and see where we stand right now so that we can define our plans for the future accordingly. Iceland is a country which is not known for producing Beach Volleyball players and so our level is also a question mark right now. We will get to know more after this tournament.”
The season will then continue with the first stage of the CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup where Elisabet and Berglind will also represent Iceland. Their country was assigned to Pool A – alongside Portugal, France, and Hungary – so the young girls will travel to Matosinhos (POR) to join there the first step of the Olympic qualification process leading up to Rio 2016. “We are very excited about this opportunity to represent Iceland and on top of this we will get the chance to play some good teams,” they say.
Iceland is a country where there is still much room for improvement when it comes to the development of Beach Volleyball: “We are the only team from our country that keeps on playing Beach Volleyball also during the winter season,” reveal Berglind and Elisabet. “We are trying to combine Beach Volleyball and Volleyball throughout the winter time. We are still very young, so we can try to do this. There is a summer circuit in Iceland which is made up of six tournaments plus the finals held in August. We have won the women’s tour for the last couple of years and hope to continue the same way this season as well.”
Their long-term goal is to perform well at the 2015 edition of the Games of the Small States of Europe that will take place in their country’s capital city, Reykjavik. Last year Iceland lost all of their matches in the prelims of the tournament held in Luxembourg. “We definitely want to improve and leave our mark once Reykjavik welcomes the Games next year,” they conclude. Their journey will get started this week in Antalya in a tournament that will feature, among others, strong teams from Germany, the Netherlands, and Russia.
Picture: Iceland’s Berglind Jonsdottir and Elisabet Einarsdottir getting ready for their debut in a CEV Satellite later this week in Antalya, Turkey
Click here for more information on the CEV Satellite coming up in Antalya
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