20/06/2014 14:14
Greece relies on blend of youth and experience in Continental Cup first round
2014-2016 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup - Men & Women
Schinias, Greece, June 20, 2014. The CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup will stop this weekend also in Greece, right in the outskirts of Athens. The city of Schinias rose to international fame back in 2004 hosting the rowing and canoeing events of the 2004 Olympic Games. On Saturday and Sunday the municipality of Marathon will be playing host to one of eight 1st Round tournaments of the 2014-2016 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup whereby teams start their quest for making the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
The home teams of Greece will test the skills of their rivals from Belarus, Romania, San Marino and Malta. Belarus and San Marino – which is entering only the men’s competition – are making their debut in the Continental Cup after missing the inaugural edition that qualified one European team per gender for the 2012 London Olympics.
Though the sky has been cloudy for the past few days, all teams can look forward to the start of a memorable tournament. A brand-new Beach Volleyball court has been set up in Schinias (see picture) and will be officially inaugurated on Saturday morning as the competition gets underway with the first set of matches.
The home country will rely heavily on a very experienced duo, as Vasiliki Arvaniti and Maria Tsiartsiani – the silver medallists from the 2012 European Championship in The Hague – are back in action together after 18 months. Tsiartsiani has been out due to injury first and is now returning after an additional break due to the birth of her first child. “Maria and I know each other since many years,” two-time European champion Vasiliki Arvaniti says. “So it was very easy for us to find back our chemistry on the sand. We still need to play more matches in order to reach our optimum. Maria hasn’t played for a long time: she was first injured and then had a baby, but our preparations have gone really well and I believe that we fill find back our rhythm tournament after tournament. We want to start in the best way already tomorrow irrespective of the opponent we will get to play.”
Apart from Arvaniti and Tsiartiani, Greece will also line-up Panagiota Karagkouni and Evangelia Christou. Penny, as Karagkouni is also known, is the youngest player in the team being only 21. Last year she played at the European Championship with Arvaniti making the 1/4 finals in Klagenfurt and in Schinias she will make her debut alongside Christou. “It’s a totally new experience for us,” she acknowledges, “especially since we do not know anything about our opponents here. We have to manage to adjust our tactics to the players we will get to play and do our best to make it to the next round. Evi and I have been practicing together every day since one month but we have been working really hard. I think we do well as a team and I hope we will leave that same impression once we take it to the court.”
Greece’s most experienced and decorated pair for the men’s competition is Georgios Kotsilianos and Nikos Zoupanis. These two guys have been playing together for quite some time and know each other very well. They recently participated in the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam in Russia. “It is very important that we perform well. We only know the teams from Belarus since they have participated in some international tournaments,” Kotsilianos says. “I hope that a large crowd will attend our matches and that our fans will enjoy the tournament.”
Fernandos Billiris used to play with Pavlos-Odysseas Kouzounis but the latter suffered a car accident about a month ago and therefore Billiris will team up with Ioannis Roumeliotakis for the home tournament in Schinias. Together they hope they can make the difference for Greece: “We want to make the next round. We do not know much about the other teams and their level, so we focus on ourselves,” Billiris says. “We have been together for a short time but we have been working hard and hope to see the result of that hard work. I think it does not really matter that we haven’t played official matches together going into this tournament; we only have to show what we are capable of. This is a great opportunity to develop our chemistry and to grow as a team.”
Greece’s head coach Costas Tampouratzis says about the upcoming tournament: “Our adventure on the way to Rio 2016 will start tomorrow. Our Beach Volleyball teams can make the Olympics, as well as compete at the World and European Championships, something that our Volleyball national teams haven’t been able to achieve lately. This tournament is just the very beginning of the pre-Olympic season. We go for a good start. Back in 2010, at that same stage of the competition, our women finished first and the men second. I believe that our teams have improved a lot since that time. If our performance will be better than four years ago, this is a different story. It’s a good thing that we are hosting this tournament here in Greece and I hope we will get the same opportunity in one of the next rounds. We hope that many fans will come to see the matches and will support us with their positive energy.”
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