The Riviera Hotel and Entertainment Complex in Kazan
KAZAN – Kazan, the host city of the 2013 Summer Universiade currently hosts the European Universities Beach Volleyball Championship, a EUSA event. The Opening Ceremony was attended by Minister of Youth Affairs, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Tatarstan Rafis Burganov, Honorary President of the Russian Volleyball Federation Valentin Zhukov, Director General of the Kazan 2013 Executive Board, EUSA EC Member Leonz Eder, EUSA СT Chair Daniela Erni, Russian representative on the FIVB Council Ilya Volodarsky, President of the Volleyball Federation of the Republic of Tatarstan Ilkham Rakhmatullin.
In his welcome speech Rafis Burganov expressed gratitude to the guests of the Championship and wished success to the participants.
On behalf of EUSA, the European University Sports Association Leonz Eder thanked the VII European Universities Beach Volleyball Championship managers and expressed confidence that the athletes would follow the rules of fair play.
After his welcome Vladimir Leonov declared the VII European Universities Beach Volleyball Championship open and expressed hope that the competition would be held in the atmosphere of studentship, friendship and sports.
The Kazan 2013 SU Organizing Committee is staging the VII European Universities Beach Volleyball Championship as a test event for the Universiade as Beach Volleyball will be an optional sport. The tournament has drawn 13 men’s and 14 women’s tandems from Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, Poland, Portugal, France, Spain and Russia. The Championship will last until July 10th.
Women’s and Men’s A, B and C Pool Meets decide first Leaders of the Tournament
The volleyball players of the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University and the Kuban State University of Physical Education, Sport and Tourism started the Championship on the first court. The Russian players took their chance and earned a 2-0 win over the guests from Poland. Despite the victory the “Kubans” were not quite satisfied with their first meet.
“We expected a better performance from ourselves but the tournament start has the tightest matches as a rule. In the course of the Championship we will gain our regular fit and will post more confident victories. By all means we will put all our strength to finish among the top places”, said player of the Kuban State University of Physical Education, Sport and Tourism Artem Kucherenko to the Kazan2013.com correspondent. The parallel match on the second court between the women’s teams of the Kazan State Finance and Economics Institute and the University of Flensburg ended with a 0-2 score in favor of the German players. And as for the third court match it was won by the Polish athletes from the University of Finance and Management of Bialystok: it took them two sets to beat the French players from the Grenoble University 2-0.
There was a closely contested three-set match between the teams of Portugal and Turkey. The University of Coimbra volleyball players stayed unbeaten in the match against the Gazi University team that played off the second set. The final score is 2-1 in favor of the Portuguese athletes. The women’s team of the Kuban State University of Physical Education, Sport and Tourism lost in three straight sets to the German players. The Russian women’s team that was leading the game fell to the team from Germany with a 1-2 score. “It was our first experience of participating in the event of this level that’s why we are feeling out our competitors, studying their weak and strong points. The game was decent and we hope that we’ll have a chance to meet our offenders and take avenge”, Anastasia Vorotnikova shared her plans after the match.
Day 1 will see the matches of all the men’s and women’s pools of the Championship. In total 26 games will be played.
(Source: Media Department of Kazan 2013 Executive Board)
