08/12/2020 09:00
Naz to set record for Turkish Volleyball with 15th #CLVolleyW participation
CEV Champions League Volley 2021 - Women
Istanbul, Turkey, December 8, 2020. When she takes to the court of Palaverde to play against VB NANTES of France later this evening, Turkish Volleyball superstar Naz Aydemir Akyol will begin her fifteen campaign in the elite CEV Champions League Volley, a competition that she has won as many four times. Naz claimed the most coveted title in European Volleyball for the first time in 2012 with her current team, Fenerbahce, before seizing the crown another three times (2013, 2017 and 2018) with VakifBank.
The setter boasts a very impressive resume and at 30 years of age, she holds the record for any Turkish Volleyball player in terms of the number of CEV Champions League appearances at 15 editions. Naz played her first CEV Champions League match in the 2005/2006 season with Eczacibasi. Moreover, she competed at the CEV Champions League Final Four for 10 seasons in a row from 2009 through to 2018.
“It is a great honour for me to achieve such a record,” Naz said ahead of her match with VB NANTES. “Although it is a great thing to have been playing Champions League for so many years, I still have and feel the same excitement as before. I am also very happy to have the chance to play side by side with the best volleyball players both in our national league and in the Champions League as well. I myself have been playing Volleyball since my early childhood and after a 15-month break, last year I returned to the sport as a mother. All of these records and achievements will be very beautiful and proud memories for me as well as for my family in the future. However, I hope I do not stop here and I will achieve more success,” she continued.
Next to Naz, another two of the Fenerbahce players will have something to celebrate prior to the matchup with VB NANTES. The 18-year-olds Gülce Güçtekin and Lila Şengün will make their Champions League debut in Treviso after helping the Turkish U19 women’s national team claim gold this past summer at the European Championship held in Zenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Osijek (Croatia). At that same competition, they received the awards for the Best Libero and Best Setter, respectively.
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