Lausanne, Switzerland, November 21, 2011 – Cyprus will welcome some of beach volleyball’s brightest young stars in July after it was announced on Tuesday that the Mediterranean country will host the FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH Youth World Championships 2012.
The final agreement for the 2012 edition was signed at the FIVB headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland with the annual tournament now taking place in Cyprus for the first time in its 11-year history. Additionally, for the first time ever, the tournament for players aged under 19 for boys and under 19 for girls will feature in the main draw 32 teams, increasing from 24 in previous years.
Both the hosting city and the dates of the competition will be announced later this year following municipality elections.
Cyprus Volleyball Federation president Mr Damianos Hadjidamianou said that he looked forward to welcoming some of the world’s best U19 players, adding that the tournament will help promote beach volleyball in the country.
“I am very glad to be able to welcome this very important event, the biggest beach volleyball event ever organised in Cyprus,” he said. “The tournament will have a double aim. The first is to promote the sport of beach volleyball on the beautiful island of Cyprus and the second is to prove that our federation can organise top level events such as this one.
“We hope that the Cyprus fans will enjoy high class competition from the future stars of the sport.”
The country hosted FIVB Challenger events in 2006, 2007 and 2008 as well as a number of CEV Satellite tournaments but the FIVB Swatch Youth World Championships will be the biggest beach volleyball competition to ever be held on the island.
“The decision to organise this event was consciously made because we want to promote the sport through the youth,” said Alex Paraskevopoulos, who was representing Mr Hadjidamianou in Lausanne. “We want to promote the sport in Cyprus through the best youth in the world; the future stars.”
Paraskevopoulos added that he expects big crowds throughout the tournament and that travelling fans will be in awe of Cyprus’ beauty.
“We hope people will enjoy the beauty of the island and the facilities, which are top class,” he explained. “All of the challenger and satellite events have welcomed full crowds and we are very optimistic that this will happen again with the youth of the world.”
The FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch Youth World Championship was held in Umag, Croatia with Polish pairs Lukasz Kaczmarek and Macjej Kosiak, and Karolina Baran and Katarzyna Kociolek winning both the men’s and women’s edition respectively.