Volleyball Ireland are delighted to receive €5,000 in funding from the Olympic Federation of Ireland’s Discretionary Support Fund. The grant will be focused on developing a performance pathway for Junior Beach Volleyball Players. The announcement was made by OFI President Sarah Keane at their AGM last week.
The funding will be used specifically to setup our first Junior High Performance Beach Camp, which will be held this July. The residential camp will run over 3 days from Thursday 19th – Saturday 21st July in Gormanston Park College, Co. Meath. With the Beach training element held at Bettystown Beach in Co. Meath. The camp will see International coaches and former professional tour players join forces with current Irish Internationals to deliver a range of sessions to develop the key skills of Beach Volleyball. The programme will focus on the transition from the familiar indoor court to help players adapt to the sand. The camp will look at the technical and tactical differences as well as the psychological elements of 2v2 gameplay.
Conor Flood, Player Pathway Coordinator said, “The performance camp is a really great first step to players wanting to give Beach Volleyball a go. We are establishing a proper pathway that will support players from schools participation to International competition. In Year 1, we are specifically looking for players that are playing high level school or National League Club Volleyball or are involved in underage indoor squads to take part. A full Youth Beach Tour will then begin next season with the best players forming an underage National Squad. The HP Commission is currently mapping out which Intl events to target so there is a real opportunity here for players to represent Ireland in Europe.”
This is the first step in the creation of a National Junior Tour and underage Beach Volleyball National teams that will represent Ireland in CEV, FIVB and hopefully someday, Olympic standard tournaments. The camp is open to 12 boys and 12 girls aged between 14-18 years old.
The cost of the course is €50 pp which will include 2 nights Full Board Accommodation and 3 days of training and competition. Each player will also receive a small kit bag with training uniform. The camp is supervised at all times with Volleyball Ireland Garda Vetted staff overseeing the event and hosting the Residential element of the programme which will see boys and girls residing in different sections of Gormanston Park College.
More details on the finalised programme will be released in the coming days. As there are limited places we urge all interested players (and parents) to complete the initial application form (below). A more detailed Application and payment information will follow for those players accepted on to the course.
https://forms.gle/X47pSTsSDk4Y5kxC9
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