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.