Special Feature

Malta in the San Marino 2001 GSSE

 The Road to San Marino - Volleyball

Volleyball is a hugely popular team sport at the GSSE and was first introduced in Cyprus in 1989. Since then this discipline has always been included in subsequent editions.

Malta experienced its baptism of fire in 1989 with our boys taking to the court against San Marino. After losing the first set (7-15), the locals won the second set 15-10 but eventually wilted in the third and fourth set for San Marino to ease through.

Against Monaco, the locals won the first set but our opponents then put in more muscle to claim the next three sets. The third and final game pitted our lads against the might of Luxembourg. As expected, our opponents claimed an easy win in three straight sets to top the group. Luxembourg went all the way to the final losing to Cyprus to claim the silver medal.

Malta's first ever experience in volleyball at these games ended on a high as the team edged Andorra in an epic five set thriller to finish seventh overall. Volleyball has come a long way since then. The ladies experienced their first taste of the Games on home soil in 1993. More often than not, only the men's category was contested at the Games although our two teams made it to the last edition in Liechtenstein. This time round, both teams will be making to trip to San Marino.

Six nations will be contesting the men's category in as Liechtenstein pulled out at the eleventh hour which meant that the organizers had to reshuffle the draws. The discipline will now be contested on a round robin basis with Malta's first match against Cyprus on May 29th.

Our girls will clash swords with four other nations in a similar round robin format as Luxembourg opted not to send their female side to the games. Unfortunately, our two sides will be in action on the same day and at the same time against Cyprus.

Under the helm of Antonio Pavlov, a Bulgarian coach, the boys who form the national squad have improved by leaps and bounds. Pavlov was appointed in September last year and since then, the Bulgarian has managed to pool together a group of budding youngsters with a winning mentality. Training sessions span the entire week except on Sundays from 9.00-11.00pm. In San Marino, the side will benefit from the inclusion of young Peter Testa of Canada who is rated as an excellent player in Toronto. Testa will be coming over to Malta a few days before the Games to train with his colleagues.

As part of the build up to these games, both squads experienced two intensive training camps in Brescia at the end of January and in Sicily two weeks ago. The players faced a gruelling task as they played three games against foreign sides in a day. This tough assignment was specifically planned to test the players' endurance who will be in action every day during the Games.

The ladies train under the watchful eye of Verika Stoyanova Borisova, a former legend of Bulgarian volleyball. She played for the national side for 15 years and was last year voted as the third best ever volleyball player of the century in Bulgaria. She was appointed as national coach in January this year. Our girls are still on a high following their credible third placing in the European Small Countries Championships Pool C which were held in Malta in June last year. This was the first success registered by local volleyball in an international competition. Berikova knows only too well that a win in San Marino could easily put the side in the driving seat for a historic medal at these games.

Both sides seem to be in the right frame of mind for these important games which will be contested over consecutive days during the Games. The calendar of events is as follows:

Men	Cyprus 29th May		Ladies	Cyprus 29th May
	Luxembourg 30th May			Liechtenstein 30th May
	Iceland 31st May			Iceland 31st May
	San Marino 1st June			San Marino 1st June
	Andorra 2nd June