The coaches of the four teams competing in World Grand Prix Pool N
Taldykorgan, Kazakhstan, June 25, 2015 – The coaches and team captains of Kazakhstan, Algeria, Australia and Cuba were invited to a press conference at the Zhastar Sports Palace on Thursday to preview FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix Pool N.
The Chief of the Sports Department of the Almaty Region, Mr Turatbek Charapiev was delighted to welcome everyone to Taldykorgan’s for the Grand Prix. “We are pleased to meet everyone. All the teams from Cuba, Australia and Algeria are welcome in our city. Taldykorgan has a lot of athletes who are good in the national and in the international level. The Zhastar Sports Palace was built for these athletes in 2010 and now we are happy to have prepared everything for a good competition.”
Kazakhstan coach Oleksandr Gutor said: “We have just competed in the Asian Championships and in the Yeltsin Cup, so this is our kind of our preparation, and hopefully, we will have good results.”
Kazakhstan captain Korinna Ishimtseva said: “We know how our opponents play from past matches, but there are many changes in our team and in their teams so it will be difficult to predict the outcome of this round.”
Algeria coach Francois Salvagny said: “As you know, the level of African volleyball is just a little bit lower than in the world's best, but for us, it’s the second time we play in the World Grand Prix and with this experience, we can become better and better in the future. We are here with some young players, so this competition is very important for us in terms of international exposure. It’s amazing for us, so we just want to do our best.”
Algeria captain Fatima Zahra Oukazi said: “For us, this is a very important international experience. We will play match by match. For us, every match at every time is a new chance to become better in international volleyball.”
Australia coach Mark Barnard said: “We are a young team and we have a mixture of full-time athletes and professionals. This is a great opportunity to play high-level volleyball. As the weeks go on, we get better and better. We need to play well because we don’t want to be in the finals having lost all of our matches. For our players, the level of confidence they will gain will come from performing well.’”
Australia captain Shae Sloane said: “We don’t know much about our opponents, so we just want to focus on our game, what we can do on our side of the net to hopefully win a match. Right now we’re concentrating on things outside of the court and what we can do together as a team, so we can improve as the World Grand Prix progresses.”
Cuba assistant coach Luis Gabriel Oviedo said: “Our preparation started in January. We just came from the PanAm Cup where we won 4th place. In this World Grand Prix, we have to do our best. For every match, we have to play well, because all the teams are strong. We are playing with a very young team but we will try to make it to the finals in Australia.”