July 30, 2009

Welcome to my blog for some insights into the U.S. Men’s Junior National Team participating in the 2009 FIVB Men’s Junior World Championship being contested July 31-Aug. 9 in Pune, India. It is a great honor to serve as the appointed FIVB press officer sitting on the Control Committee for this World Championship event.

The U.S. Men’s Team arrived in Pune early yesterday morning and had its training session on the main competition court this morning. In watching the team during its one-hour session, it would be hard to tell they had just traveled from Los Angeles to Dubai to Pune the day before.

But long-distance travel is part of the competition, and I offer this from a personal perspective. From the time I left for the airport in Colorado Springs and stepped foot in the LeRoyale Residency hotel in Pune, India, my journey lasted just over 30 hours. The trip was highlighted by three flights of which two were nine hours in length, three hour layovers in Dallas and London, clearing India’s customs that included a swine flu evaluation and a stop-and-go four-hour car ride from Mumbai to Pune that dodged a few mountainside mudslides developed in the current monsoon season.

Being that it took nearly a full day to recover from the jet lag caused from being 12 time zones away and little sleep leading up to the journey, I can only imagine what the U.S. team here in Pune has gone through and what our Men’s and Women’s National Teams endure on a regular basis at the senior level. My trip was altogether and I am here for over two weeks. In contrast, USA Volleyball’s National Teams endure several back-to-back international travel weekends with the FIVB World League and World Grand Prix to disrupt rest. Yet, our teams perform to high standards each weekend in these tournaments, then travel once again to a distant locale for more volleyball.

As an illustration, the U.S. Women’s National Volleyball Team begins the FIVB World Grand Prix on July 31. The squad will travel from its headquarters in Anaheim to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, with a layover in Newark, N.J. Once in Brazil, the U.S. will play three consecutive days before leaving for Chinese Taipei for another three preliminary matches on Aug. 7-9. The team concludes the preliminary round with another weekend of matches Aug. 14-16 in Bangkok, Thailand, a relatively short journey. If the U.S. finishes among the top five teams (or six if Japan finishes in the top five), it will travel immediately to the World Grand Prix Final Round in Japan for another five consecutive days of matches.

Similarly, the U.S. Men’s National Team participates in the FIVB World League with six consecutive weekends of international competition – three in the United States and three abroad. In 2009, USA was in a pool of home-and-home matches with Netherlands, China and Italy. Team USA, the 2008 FIVB World League champion, qualified for the World League Finals by winning its pool and earned another trip to Serbia for a seventh straight weekend of international competition and time away from family.

Based on the USA’s location, very few countries could come close to matching the amount of miles logged to compete in international senior level events such as these. And yet, our players are always up for the challenge and perform well under the circumstances.

On to other matters. The host country has been busy preparing the two competition venues and the corresponding training halls for the teams to train and compete. With other events occupying the space at the Balewadi Sports Complex in recent days, workers have been busy making final preparations for the event to go off without a hitch. It is amazing to see the number of volunteers pitching in to meet the requirements to host an FIVB World Championship event. The Volleyball Federation of India and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) have put in significant hours in preparing to host this event thus far and have worked hard to answer or fix any situation that has been asked of them.

Until next time, you can follow the U.S. Men’s Junior National Team here in India through the USA Volleyball Web site (www.usavolleyball.org) and through the FIVB Web site (http://www.fivb.org/EN/Volleyball/Competitions/Junior/men/2009/).