Púchov, Slovakia, April 10, 2018. Twins in the world of sport are rare, but you
can also find some in volleyball. For example, the Finnish twin brothers Matti
and Mikko Oivanen. If you studied the rosters of the teams
competing in the 2018 CEV U18 Volleyball European Championship - Men in Zlin and
Púchov, you would stumble upon a last name repeating in the Slovak team
for players, who share the same birth date and height. We are speaking about
twin brothers Šimon and Vincent Rzyman.
They have the same smile, same face and it is
really difficult to tell them apart. "Our coach gave us national team
jackets in different colours, so he could recognise, who is who," smiles
Šimon. Vincent is an opposite and Šimon a middle blocker. "Šimon is not as
good as me, so he is playing on the block," joked Vincent and Šimon added:
"Some players can only spike, but I know, how to spike and block, so do
not believe him in the question, who is a better player."
Surprisingly, these young, talented players have
never tried to swap their names, but they are thinking to make this joke on the
national team coach Erik Gábor. "We will try it sometimes," they
agree simultaneously. Actually, Vincent´s nickname is Šimon and Šimon has a
nickname Vinco, so no one can ever be wrong with their names.
The Rzymans started playing Volleyball in their home
town Poprad, under the big mountains in the High Tatras. Before the last season
they moved to the national volleyball academy in Trenčín and they have played several
matches in Slovakia‘s top division Extraliga. "We started to play Volleyball thanks to the assistant coach here in the national team, Andrej
Vojčík. He called us to the club in Poprad and we started to love volleyball
from the very first moment," Šimon recalled, how it all began.
The dream of the boys is to always play Volleyball in the same team, just like famous ice-hockey twins Daniel and
Henrik Sedin from Sweden. "Of course, we would like to play in one team,
because we have a very good relationship, even though we are always together,
we never fight. That is why we dream of playing in one team together as our
careers progress," said both Rzymans in the end.
Click here for further information on the 2018 #EuroVolleyU18M.