The Gambia National volleyball teams Men and Women teams are gearing up for a busy year in international competition.
The first international outing for GVBA will be the U-21 Zone II tournament which will be held in Dakar Senegal next weekend, the team will be traveling on Wednesday 13th August 2014 with thirty six member delegation.
The technical committee nominated four coaches to oversee the Under 21 Men and Women teams.
Alagie Babu Joof and Lamin Sanneh are responsible for the women, whiles Ebrima Nyassi and Pa Bubacarr Barrow will guide the men’s team.
Speaking ahead of the championship the Auditor of the Association Alagie Ceesay (Nature) shed light on the importance of the competition. “We are ready to expose our teams in the international championships, this is part of the plan to send our national teams whenever we are invited and we are hopeful that we will come out with an outstanding result,”
“The more we play international games, the more we will trade our players to bigger leagues and that will be an additional benefit to the country,” (Nature) said. The Auditor was quick to opine for more financial supports mainly from the central government and other institutions to support the team to successfully take part in this event.
“This tournament will act as a warm-up match before the African women championships to be held in Algeria from the September 5 to 15, 2014 for the categories of U18 and U23 Women and the winner will represent Africa in the corresponding 2015 World Championships.”
In another development, Gambia Volleyball Association organised a three day seminar for referees and coaches as well as another on beach volleyball.
“This training program will help the limited local coaches and referees to know more about the Game and FIVB is encouraging there affiliated federations to promote beach volleyball in their respective countries and today beach volleyball is a priority on FIVB developments,” Secretary General of the Association, Sainey Jarju said.
International referee Mr. Bai Dodou Jallow will conducted the training program and 20 participants were invited to take part in the training.
Among the participants 12 referees and 8 coaches from clubs that are affiliated with Gambia Volleyball Association. The training course finished on August 10th at the Olympafrica Centre Serekunda east.
GVBA is also staging a Nawetan beach volleyball tournament for the first time in the Gambia which will be played at the Sunwing Hotel beach side just near Pocoloco night club. It will kick start on Sunday 17th August 2014 for duration of three 3 weeks and Gamtel is sponsoring the tournament
Eight teams namely Gamtel/Gamcel, Brikama, Sere Kunda East, Jeshwang, GAF, Interior, GFRS and The Gambia Veterans volleyball club.
The Executive is also urging stakeholders and companies to come forward and support volleyball which they believe will go a long way in helping out this rather a dormant sport.
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