Brazil
With the tournament less than a week away – Nov. 12-17 – the Olympic champions and 2013 FIVB Grand Prix winners aren’t wasting any time to perfect their skills on the court. The team held their first workout at the training center in Hisamitsu in Kobe.
“The first day of practice is always tricky,” said libero Fabiana Oliveira. “We’re on an adrenaline rush after our arrival, and we’re still trying to adapt. We are doing exercises at a time that our body wants to sleep. This is hard, but today we will face the first day to sleep with a smile on our face. We only have a little bit of time to train here and we need to adapt as quickly as possible.”
Despite the women’s exhaustion, José Elias Proença stressed the importance of completing that first practice.
“When we are training during a time that would normally be asleep we try to circumvent the body’s normal routine with more recreational activities focusing on body awareness,” Elias Proença said. “We use fitness balls and focus on the abdomen, arms, legs and concentration. The team does all this in a playful way in order to keep the body awake. Later we do excercizes with the balls to work the cardiorespiratory system. Finally, we work with muscle exercises for the legs, arms and trunk.”
The FIVB Volleyball World Grand Champions Cup features a total of six teams per gender, including hosts Japan, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Japan, Russia, Thailand and USA.
The FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Grand Champions Cup has had a different winner for each of its five previous editions with Cuba (1993), Russia (1997), China (2001), Brazil (2005) and Italy (2009) all claiming the title. The U.S. captured the silver medal in the 2005 FIVB World Grand Champions Cup in its only podium finish in the five previous editions.
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