Ciarelli Joins Junior Beach Team at Worlds

B.J. Hoeptner Evans
Manager, Media Relations and Publications
Phone: (719) 228-6800
E-Mail: bj.evans@usav.org  

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Sept. 14, 2010) – With one roster change, four U.S. beach volleyball teams have headed to Alanya, Turkey for the 2010 SWATCH FIVB Junior (Under-21) World Championships, which begin with the qualifying tournament on Wednesday (Sept. 15).

Ciarelli won the silver medal at the 2008 FIVB Beach Youth World Championships with Jeff Carlson (Newport Beach, Calif.). Indoors, Ciarelli plays outside hitter for USC and was also on the 2009 U.S. Men’s Junior National Team that competed at the FIVB World Championship.

Carlson will play on the men’s USA-2 team with Connor Hughes (Costa Mesa, Calif.). They will have to play in Wednesday’s qualifying tournament in order to advance to the main draw.

The women’s USA-1 team will be Summer Ross (Carlsbad, Calif.) and Tara Roenicke (Alta Loma, Calif.), who paired for a gold medal at the 2009 Australian Youth Olympic Festival. Ross also won the gold medal with partner Jane Croson at the 2010 FIVB Beach Youth World Championships in July in Portugal.

The women’s USA-2 team will include Chelsea Rashoff (Danville, Calif.) and Courtney Trevino (Austin, Texas). They will have to compete in the qualifying tournament on Wednesday in hopes of making it into the main draw.

Accompanying the team to Alanya are Eduardo “Anjinho” Bacil (El Segundo, Calif.) as the team’s coach and Ali Wood Lamberson, USA Volleyball director of beach programs, as the team leader.

The 24-team main draw for each gender will include two days of pool play on Thursday and Friday and two days of single-elimination bracket play Saturday and Sunday. The medal matches for both genders will be played Sunday on the Alanya Center Court.

A total of 81 teams (38 women’s and 43 men’s) from 33 countries have officially entered the 2010 SWATCH FIVB Junior World Championships. Countries represented are Australia, Austria, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Iran, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United States and Venezuela.

This marks the second straight year that Turkey is staging a world finale after hosting the 2009 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships for players under 19 years old last August in Alanya.

Entered in this year’s men’s field, Brazil’s 2009 silver medalists in this event, Vitor Felipe and Alvaro Filho lead 18 players who participated in the 2009 FIVB Beach Junior World Championships in Blackpool, England. Entered in this year’s women’s field, Poland’s 2009 gold medalist Kinga Kolosinska returns with a different partner to lead 21 returning women’s players from the Blackpool tournament.

Also entered this year are 10 men’s and 18 women’s players who competed in July at the 2010 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships in Porto, Portugal. Leading these players is men’s gold medalist Piotr Kantor of Poland with a different partner along with women’s gold medalist Ross, who is also with a new partner.

Athletes with experience in the Alanya heat and on the Alanya sand from last year’s 2009 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships who have entered this year’s 2010 SWATCH FIVB Junior World Championships include all three men’s teams from last year’s Alanya podium in Ukraine’s gold medalists Sergiy Popov/Valeriy Samoday; Russia’s silver medalists Andrey Bolgov/Ruslan Bykanov and Spain’s bronze medalists Kevin Medina/Cesar Menendez. 

Last year’s women’s gold medalist in Alanya, Germany’s Christine Aulenbrock and Victoria Bieneck are both back, but with different partners. Aulenbrock is playing with Cinja Tillmann and Bieneck’s partner will be 2008 SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships gold medalist Chantall Laboureur, who played in several 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour German country quota matches and made it to a couple of qualification tournaments. Russia’s Irina Chaika returns after winning the bronze in Alanya last year with a different partner.

For more information on the men’s bracket of the SWATCH FIVB Beach Junior World Championships, click here.

For more information on the women’s bracket of the SWATCH FIVB Beach Junior World Championships, click here.

Tags: Beach, Beach Volleyball, FIVB beach, FIVB World Championship, junior, Summer Ross, Tony Ciarelli, Under 21 World Championships, World Championships