As Nanjing enters its second month of summer, it is also making way for the upcoming FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championship, in just T minus 4 days. This championship is a unique opportunity for youth beach volleyball players from around the world to compete and gain experience.
The World Youth Volleyball U19 World Championship will feature 16-year-old Judah Verbeek, who will be playing for Team Canada. Greg Simone, head coach for the U18 Team Ontario Black beach volleyball team, of which Verbeek is a member, will be accompanying Verbeek to the Nanjing games this year to lend his support.
“This is like the first taste of what other countries are doing, and what’s their style of play, and the level that they’re at, and how can they get to that level as well”, said coach Simone in an interview with The Observer.
The double-gender championships will be the 15th edition of a competition first held in Greece in 2002.
Held annually until 2014, it has since been organised every 2 years and is an opportunity for young players to acquire experience at an international level.
Also playing in the championship will be the Taranaki Trio, comprised of three young athletes from New Zealand who fought their way to this championship.
According to Taranaki Daily News, Keegan Joe and Dickson, two members of the Taranaki Trio, had to sacrifice representing their National Junior Indoor Volleyball teams at the Asian Championships in Iran and Thailand to play at these world championships instead.
With the recent hosting of the first-ever Volleyball Women’s Nations League Finals, Nanjing’s sporting fans will be pleased that this upcoming world tournament shall take place in four days’ time, at the Intersection of Yanxiang Lu and Ruoshui Lu in Jiangning District from 10-15 July, in the process welcoming the world’s top talent in youth volleyball to Nanjing.
