Date:12/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/12/stories/2008101255411600.htm

Sport - Volleyball

Indian colts leave for Colombo

Special Correspondent

— Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

Sreedharan.

VISAKHAPATNAM: “I always aim for the gold and from the beginning I have been saying that we will win the gold,” said Indian youth volleyball team coach G.E. Sreedharan here on Saturday as the team left for Colombo to participate in the Asian youth volleyball championship after a long and strenuous camp.

India won the Asian youth title last when it was held here in 2003, finished third in 2005 and picked up silver in the last meet held in 2007 and needs to win gold to qualify for the World championship.

Serve and reception of the team bothered Sreedharan, National coach M. Syamsundara Rao and VFI technical committee chairman Ramana Rao and veteran coach S. Kodandaramaiah during the four-match series against the Egyptian youth team last month, though it won comfortably.

But special sessions were held on these two aspects and the boys have improved a lot, Sreedharan said. The block-attack, combination and backline attack were extremely good and the team had to serve with speed and concentrate on reception a little bit more, he said.

The main advantages of the team are the height of the players and optimum physical fitness. “It is for the first time that the average height of the team has reached 197.5cm, with five players being more than 2 metres tall. This is not so even in our senior team. Even among the 24 players who were picked up for final selection, 12 were above 2m. This is a good sign for Indian volleyball,” he said.

It is an eight-day competition. India plays Thailand and Kuwait in its group on the first two days. Though defending champion Iran is also in the same group, Sreedharan is confident of his team doing well.