VOLLEYBALL NEWS - SEP 97 - Results
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Hi All,
With the World Beach and the European Championships both taking place at the same
time, today's newsletter looks a bit like a results service. So if you have not
been able to follow the matches elsewhere, the results are as follows.
Cheers
Dave
PS: Will the FIVB and AVP ever get it together ??? read on.....
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FYI-
The Americqan Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) is getting ready to
publish a coaches stat manual, complete with explanations, examples and
many forms. It probably won't be ready until Nov. or Dec. They will be
selling packets of the forms and probably computer discs with the forms.
Contact or join the AVCA at: svivas@avca.org or call (719) 576-7777.
Steph
sjsmn@aol.com (SJS MN)
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EUROPEAN RESULTS
The Netherland continued their winning streak, by adding the European title
to their Atlantic 96 Olympic title yesterday, with a close 3-1 win over
Yugoslavia.
Final:
Netherlands v Yugoslavia 3-1 (15-11, 10-15, 15-10, 15-9)
Semi - Finals:
Netherlands v Italy 3 - 0 (15-9, 15-6, 15-13)
Yugoslavia v France 3 - 0 (15-6, 17-15, 15-13)
Group I final ranking:
1. Yugoslavia 5 - 9 (12- 4)
2. Italy 5 - 9 (12- 4)
3. Slovakia 5 - 8 (10-10)
4. Russia 5 - 7 (10- 9)
5. Germany 5 - 7 ( 7-12)
6. Greece 5 - 5 ( 3-15)
Group II:
1. Netherlands 5 -10 (15- 0)
2. France 5 - 8 (10- 8)
3. Ukraine 5 - 8 (11-10)
4. Tsjech 5 - 7 (10-12)
5. Bulgaria 5 - 7 ( 8-12)
6. Finland 5 - 5 ( 3-15)
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BEACH WORLDS AT LOS ANGELES
LOS ANGELES, CALIF. - Here's qualifying results from the WorldChampionships
of Beach Volleyball here Wednesday (September 10) at the LA Tennis Center on
the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles (country-qualifying
results).
WOMEN
1st Sandra Pires\Jackie Silva, BRA
2nd Lisa Arce\Holly McPeak, USA
3rd Karolyn Kirby\Nancy Reno, USA
33rd Amanda Glover\Vanessa Malone, ENG
MEN
1st Guilherme/Para, BRA
2nd Whtimarsh/Ceman, USA
3rd Paulo Emilio/Paulao, BRA
3rd Blanton/Steffes, USA
Women's Second Round Results (Losers eliminated, place 33rd)
Hashimoto/Teru Saiki (JPN-7) def. (ENG-10) Glover/Malone 15-8 in 27min.
33rd place Amanda Glover\Vanessa Malone, ENG (10q) 0-1
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HITTING THE . . .BEACH (SORT OF)
Volleyball: After much of the usual wrangling, World Championship tournament
opens miles from the shore at UCLA.
=============================================================
By MIKE PENNER, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 10, 1997
from the Los Angeles Times
The 1997 World Championships of Beach Volleyball, brought to you via the
unlikely cease-fire alliance of the Federation Internationale de Volleyball
(FIVB) and the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals (AVP), open today missing
only one thing.
The beach.
Land-locked Westwood, where a crushed-ice margarita is as close as it gets to
saltwater surf, is the improbable site of these championships, courtesy of
2,700 tons of rented sand trucked in from Simi Valley and dumped all over the
tennis courts at UCLA.
What, the AVP and the FIVB couldn't agree on a beach?
"Hermosa?"
"No, Redondo."
"How about Manhattan?"
"Huntington."
"You're out of your mind as usual. Newport."
"Laguna!"
"La Jolla!"
"Enough of this already. Let's just put the damn thing (dart thumps hard
against a wall map of greater Los Angeles and vicinity) . . . at UCLA. All
right. And we'll need some sand. (THUMP!) OK, we truck it in from Simi
Valley."
Actually--and officials from the FIVB and AVP concur --there are practical
reasons these first hands-across-the-net world championships of beach
volleyball are being held on an artificial beach.
First, Nike, which is co-sponsoring the event, wanted it at the UCLA Tennis
Center, where permanent seating and lights already exist and VIPs can be
grandly entertained with no threat of sea gulls or sand fleas.
Nike, having brokered this four-day truce between the FIVB and AVP, was going
to get what it wanted.
Second, the AVP's attempt to hold its Grand Slam tournament at Manhattan
Beach in June resulted in a snarl of citizens' lawsuits and denied Coastal
Commission permits, forcing the event to be moved to Hermosa Beach.
Third, have you ever tried parking at a volleyball tournament actually
situated within a beach community--a practice sometimes referred to as the
Miller Lite/AVP Park-N-10K Walk-Run to Center Court?
"Logistically, it's very hard to set up a large venue on the beach," says
Sinjin Smith, president of the Beach Volleyball World Council for the FIVB.
"Building one of those venues on the beach is not an easy task. In most of
the beach communities, there's not enough parking for five, six, seven, eight
thousand people."
"This is the future of sport," says Karch Kiraly, member of the AVP board of
directors. "We have 32 men's teams and 32 women's teams coming in for the
championships, plus the four-man teams. Big events like this really can't be
held on the beach."
In truth, getting the FIVB and the AVP to sign off on the playing site was
the easy part of these negotiations.
Interrupting the ongoing FIVB-AVP struggle for control of the sport to bring
these rival factions into the same event to compete for a singular world
championship--that was the real artistry and finesse of the deal.
For those new to the feud, a bit of background:
The AVP, founded in 1983, organized the first professional beach volleyball
tour, overseeing a 10-year boom in the sport that has garnered television and
sponsor partnerships producing annual prize money of $4.5 million.
The FIVB, the governing body of international volleyball, noticed this boom,
at first an American-only phenomenon, and tried to expand it worldwide by
creating its own beach volleyball circuit in 1989.
Thus, unofficial territories were staked out--the AVP getting the United
States, the FIVB the rest of the world. Conflicts developed when the AVP
tried to branch out into foreign venues and the FIVB began restricting player
movement between the tours.
When the Olympics added beach volleyball as a full-medal sport in 1996, the
AVP and the FIVB haggled long and bitterly over the qualification process,
which allowed FIVB players to qualify on their world rankings while AVP
players had to earn their way in an Olympic-trials style tournament.
Once both sides congregated in Atlanta, beach volleyball took the Olympics by
storm. The tournament was an out-of-left-field success, with NBC's television
audience proving a pushover for up-close camera shots of scantily clad
suntanned athletes romping on the beach.
Too bad the Olympics come around only once every four years.
Noting that other Olympic sports plug the four-year gap with annual or
biennial world championship events, the respective heads of professional
beach volleyball, Ruben Acosta of the FIVB and Jerry Solomon of the AVP,
decided to try to build on the momentum of '96, even if it meant agreeing not
to disagree for a few days in September.
"The Olympic Games were evidence that the sports of volleyball and beach
volleyball are growing in popularity throughout the world," Acosta says.
"Creating this event is a critical step in volleyball's evolution as a
participatory, spectator and corporate-supported sport."
Angelo Squeo, the former Italian volleyball professional who now serves as
the FIVB's beach volleyball coordinator, recalls flying into Los Angeles in
March for an ice-breaking meeting with the AVP's board of directors.
"In the beginning, it was pretty hostile," Squeo says. "In the beginning,
they were, very, you know--how can I say?--they were afraid to see me there.
They were a little bit afraid to say anything.
"Then I started to say this: 'I'm here for you. I am here for the sport. I
want to convince you this competition is worth it for you.'
"After that, we talked for an hour. I think we put the basis together then."
Sports agent Leonard Armato, the former AVP executive director co-promoting
the world championships, says, "We broke down the political walls. This
really does take the sport to another level in terms of prestige. If most of
your energy is taken up fighting, it's difficult to make strides."
Solomon of the AVP waxes less poetic when describing how the accord came to
be.
The world championships, Solomon says, are simply "a result of Nike taking an
interest in the event and seeing that if they were to get involved, they
would have to have the best players in the world. They really had no interest
in the event if the best AVP players were not invited."
To say the event signals a truce is "a little broad," Solomon says.
"It's an event we considered important. We saw it as good for the sport and
good for the AVP and good for the AVP tour."
While Squeo tries to shine a smiling light on this week's happenings at
UCLA, portraying the championships as peace in our time, to "put in the past
all the disputes," Solomon has adopted a wait-and-see approach.
"This is essentially a one-year deal," Solomon says. "Let's see how it
develops. . . .
"I would love to see our sport do something similar to what golf and tennis
have done--where the governing bodies control the Olympics, the Grand Slams
and some kind of team cup competition, and the tour dictates the rest of the
calendar year."
AVP and FIVB officials will meet this week to discuss the future of beach
volleyball and, to Solomon's thinking, "this is probably where the game is
going to end up anyway. I'd like to see us get there without shedding all the
blood other sports have."
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One Consumer May Win $1 Million Ericsson's $1 Million Mega Serve To
Be Held At World Championships Of Beach Volleyball
LOS ANGELES--(BW SportsWire)--September 9, 1997--This weekend,
one lucky Los Angeles area resident will win the chance to take the
Ericsson "Million Dollar Mega Serve" during the finals of the 1997
World Championships of Beach Volleyball, presented by Ericsson Mobile
Phones and produced by Nike Sports and Entertainment. If the serve
goes through the specially designed target, $1 million will be
awarded, payable at $50,000 per year for 20 years.
Last month, the Ericsson Million Dollar Mega Serve promotion
invited consumers to sign up for the chance to be one of 25 VIP
guests at the World Championships of Beach Volleyball. On Saturday,
Sept. 13, one of the 25 consumers' names will be drawn for the "Mega
Serve", which will take place 1:45 P.M. (Pacific Time). Joining the
contestant center court will be volleyball star Gabriella Reece.
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Bottom line on Friday's two-man competition in the 1997 World Championships
of Beach Volleyball at UCLA:
Television rules, Jose Loiola doesn't.
Loiola, the top-ranked player on the Association of Volleyball Professionals
tour and one-half of the top-seeded team in the two-man division here, didn't
make it out of the quarterfinals--largely because a made-for-TV match
schedule permitted Loiola and partner Anjinho Bacil only 45 minutes rest
between their second- and third-round matches.
Playing their second-round match at 10 in the morning, Loiola and Anjinho
worked overtime to dispatch the 16th-seeded Laciga brothers--Martin and
Paul--of Switzerland, 12-10, 9-12, 16-14, in 96 grueling minutes.
As Brazilians playing on American soil, in a tournament beholden to the
interests of American television networks NBC and ESPN, Loiola and Anjinho
were playing at a severe disadvantage.
Given a choice of one evening quarterfinal featuring four Brazilians or
another that included Americans Karch Kiraly and Adam Johnson, NBC opted for
the red, white and blue.
That decision gave Kiraly and Johnson four hours to recover from their
second-round match--and consigned Loiola-Anjinho to a side court and an early
afternoon starting time, barely 45 minutes after the end of their
second-round victory.
Drained, Loiola-Anjinho were primed for an upset--and Brazilian countrymen
Guilherme and Para completed the assignment, eliminating the tournament
favorites in 79 minutes, 12-7, 12-6.
"I think we got tired," Loiola said. "We had a really tough [second-round]
game and didn't even have a chance to think about this one and we played this
game right away.
"So maybe they should have given us a little more time. Especially because we
have all day long to play."
When Kiraly and Johnson lost to Paulo Emilio and Paulao in their night
quarterfinal, 12-6, 5-12, 12-8, today's semifinal matchups became strictly
intramural affairs.
The 10 a.m. semifinal is an all-Brazilian pairing: Guilherme-Para against
Paulo Emilio-Paulao, the field's fourth-seeded team.
Two American duos will meet in the noon semifinal: Second-seeded Dain Blanton
and Kent Steffes against third-seeded Mike Whitmarsh and Canyon Cemen.
Blanton-Steffes advanced with a 12-4, 12-3 victory over the 10th-seeded
American team of Ian Clark and Troy Tanner, 12-4, 12-3, and Whitmarsh-Cemen
ousted the sixth-seeded Brazilian side of Emanuel and Ze Marco, 12-5, 12-4.
Both the men's semifinals and final will be played today, with the final set
for 4 p.m.
In the women's final, to be held today at 2 p.m., top-seeded Americans Lisa
Arce and Holly McPeak will face the 1996 Olympic gold medalists of Brazil,
Sandra Pires and Jackie Silva.
Arce-McPeak advanced to their 14th championship final in 17 events this year
with a 12-4, 12-9 victory over the 12th-seeded U.S. team of Karolyn Kirby and
Nancy Reno.
Pires-Silva, seeded third here, reached the final with a 12-11, 4-12, 12-3
victory over Brazilian rivals Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar.
Promoters are hoping the presence of American teams in both finals will
bolster attendance, which has been unspectacular so far. For Friday's night
session, the 5,200-seat Center Court stadium was less than half-full.
This week's temporary alliance between the AVP and the Federation
Internationale de Volleyball continued uneasily, with compromises over format
and rules earning less than rave notices from Loiola and Kiraly.
On the AVP tour, Loiola competes with an American, Steffes, but such
cross-national pairings were disallowed by the FIVB for the world
championships. Thus, Loiola was forced to find a Brazilian partner. His
choice was Anjinho, a former partner whom Loiola last teamed with in 1993.
Their lack of cohesiveness was evident throughout their second-round
scare--Loiola and Anjinho had to rally from an 8-11 deficit in the third
game--and eventually toppled them against Guilherme-Para.
Kiraly was critical of the liberal setting technique--which enables a player
to put a spin on the ball--that was employed to great benefit by Paulo Emilio
on Friday. Such technique is outlawed on the AVP tour, but is permitted by
the FIVB--and the FIVB setting rules were adopted for this tournament.
"That left-side guy--I don't know what his name is--can't set a ball cleanly,
according to the rules we're used to, to save his life," Kiraly said.
"It's like double-dribbling every time in a basketball game. But, those rules
are good here and we have to deal with it. We didn't deal with it."
Speaking with the assistance of a translator, Paulo Emilio said: "In our
league [the FIVB] the sets I made tonight would have been legal and
considered a nice ball to set. Kiraly and Johnson were complaining to the
referee all night. I'm really [ticked] off. If we were not in the United
States, my sets are probably a very nice ball."
Copyright Los Angeles Times
Press Release from the L.A.Times: By Mike Penner 9/14/97
They Were Simply Brazilliant
Beach volleyball: It's not Copacabana and crowds are small, but South
Americans are world champions.
By MIKE PENNER, Times Staff Writer Sunday, September 14, 1997
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They dumped volleyball players from two rival tours, along with 2,700 tons of
Simi Valley sand, on the tennis courts at UCLA and then sat back to see how
this curious experiment they called the first World Championships of Beach
Volleyball would play out.
Among the initial findings:
1. Southern Californians, thrill-seekers in many respects, are veritable
sticks in the sand when it comes to their beach volleyball--meaning they
prefer it on the beach--which resulted in more than 1,000 empty seats at
Saturday's final day of competition.
2. Southern California may be the birthplace of beach volleyball, but the new
capital is Rio de Janeiro. Or Sao Paolo. Brazil swept both the men's and
women's finals Saturday, beating favored American teams in their own
backyard.
In the men's division, the ninth-seeded tandem of Guilherme and Para overcame
a sleepwalking start and rallied to defeat the third-seeded U.S. team of
Canyon Ceman and Mike Whitmarsh, 5-12, 12-8, 12-10, for the gold medal.
In the women's division, the third-seeded duo of Sandra Pires and Jackie
Silva knocked off the top-seeded pair of Lisa Arce and Holly McPeak, 12-11,
1-12, 12-10.
3. The feuding beach volleyball factions, the Association of Volleyball
Professionals and the Federation Internationale de Volleyball, showed they
could co-exist for four days in a balmy, pristine setting--barely--and just
to hammer it home, Guilherme and Para tastefully refrained from whooping
"FIVB RULES!" after upsetting AVP reps Ceman and Whitmarsh for the
championship.
In fact, Guilherme pleaded for a cease-fire when asked if he regarded his
gold medal a triumph for the FIVB over the AVP.
I don't think that way," Guilherme said. "I dedicate this victory to me and
my partner, and to hard work, and not the FIVB proving anything. . . .
"We don't want this fight between the AVP and the FIVB. We have to work
together. We played here at the beginning of the year in a couple AVP
tournaments and they welcomed us so well. I like the people on both tours.
"It's not the AVP or the FIVB--it's the players and beach volleyball who are
winners today."
Beach volleyball on tennis courts at UCLA, however, was a mixed proposition,
at best.
Promoter Leonard Armato hailed his artificial beach in Westwood, claiming it
succeeded in "changing perceptions," about the sport of beach volleyball in
Southern California.
But FIVB President Ruben Acosta expressed disappointment over the small
crowds at UCLA and said that if the world championships ever return to the
Los Angeles area, "I would go to Manhattan Beach."
Attendance became such a sensitive issue among tournament organizers that no
official gate totals were released for any of the four dates of competition.
(Admission to Wednesday's qualifying matches was free.)
After Saturday's last match, Armato and officials from co-sponsors Nike and
Ericsson Mobile Phones were ushered into the media workroom to address the
attendance question. No one gave any exact figures on Saturday's crowd--"I
would think 4,000," Armato said--but press-row estimates placed attendance
inside the 5,200-seat Center Court closer to 3,000.
Acosta said he was "very concerned" about the size of the crowd and promised
to "do my best to see that these seats will not be empty at the next World
Championships."
Those are scheduled for 1999, possibly in South Africa, possibly in Berlin,
but probably not back in Westwood.
Asked if attendance might have been better had the World Championship of
Beach Volleyball been played on an actual beach, Acosta said, "I strongly
believe so. I am strongly convinced."
Acosta called the Westwood Bay concept "an experiment, a very interesting
experiment. The results could have been better, but we can live with it and
learn from what we saw here."
As for the state of American beach volleyball, well, two years' time can heal
a lot of wounds.
The Brazilian sweep particularly stung in that the winning men's team of
Guilherme-Para was only the third-ranked tandem from Brazil. The country's
top two men's teams, Jose Loiola-Anjinho and Paulo Emilio-Paulao, were
eliminated by Guilherme-Para in the quarterfinals and semifinals.
Silva and Pires won the gold medal at last year's Olympics as Brazilian women
claimed both the gold and silver medals. They were underdogs against
Arce-McPeak, the current top-ranked team in the world, but that, Silva
surmised, worked in the favor of the Brazilians.
Along with their victories, both Brazilian teams received $60,000 in prize
money--$30,000 a player. Each second-place U.S. team shared $42,000.
"I think Americans and Brazilians are the best volleyball players in the
world," Silva said. "But today, Brazilians are the best."
Copyright Los Angeles Times
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More Volleyball news items have been added to the Notice Board Magazine,
check it out at - http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~dave.reece/vball/swnb.htm
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