Turkish hopefuls eager to qualify for Nanjing in front of home fans 2014 CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup - Final The official press conference before the 2014 CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup - Final was held today at Uygulama Hotel’s Perge Meeting Room in Antalya. The inaugural edition of this competition will not only determine the historic first winners of the new European trophy, but also will serve as European qualification for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games to be held from August 16 through 28 in Nanjing, China. Tournament director Oguz Degirmenci attended the press conference along with competition director Emel Öztürk, technical manager Gönenc Bengisun and the captains of the host country’s four teams - Sencer Urer, Mehmet Rifat Kantarcioglu, Esra Betul Cetin and Merve Nezir. Oguz Degirmenci opened the conference by mentioning the importance of the tournament and the new beach volleyball facility in Antalya: “Akdeniz University Beach Volleyball Center, Turkish Volleyball Federation’s new beach volleyball facility, will host the 2014 CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup - Final. Six women’s teams and six men’s teams will qualify for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. We hope to raise new players and new coaches in here. Antalya is very suitable for beach volleyball. Our new center will host various competitions in the future. We aim to raise the level of beach volleyball in Turkey by offering the best conditions to the players.” Technical manager Gönenc Bengisun gave information about the tournament format and said: “The 18 men’s and 18 women’s teams will be divided into six pools per gender. The pool winners will qualify directly for the second elimination round. The teams classified second and third in the preliminary phase, will compete against each other in the first elimination round and the winners will move on to the second. The winners of the second round will qualify for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. On the first day of the competition, the pool play matches will be held. On the second day, the players will compete in the single elimination matches and, on the last day, the classification games will take place.” “We are really excited and proud to host this Youth Continental Cup Final in Turkey. I wish all the best of luck to the participating teams,” said competition director Emel Öztürk. Esra Betul Cetin, who participated in last week’s CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite - Antalya with her partner Selin Yurtsever, said: “I started playing beach volleyball one year ago. As we are the host country, we prepared for this tournament really hard. I hope I will be a player of the Turkish national beach volleyball team for a long time.” One of Turkey’s hopefuls, Sencer Urer, added: “We hope to represent our country well and qualify for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games.” Mehmet Rifat Kantarcioglu stated that they are not as experienced as their opponents but he believes the Turkish pairs can compete well no matter which team is on the other side of the net. And Merve Nezir added: “We have been preparing for this tournament for a long time. Our goal is to qualify in front of our supporters.”
Posted on: Tue, 13 May 2014 10:57:33 +0000
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