One-time Greek Women’s Volleyball Championship winners AEK got themselves a Cuban duo.
AEK announced the start of their collaboration with veteran Rosir Calderón and Gyselle Silva, both Cuban players.
Calderón, the 37-year-old outside hitter (able to cover the opposite hitter’s position too) signed a one-year contract with the Athens-based club who’s waiting for the Greek Championship title since 2012. Calderón is born in Havana, Cuba, but also has Russian citizenship. In 2014, the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) approved the player to change her sports nationality to Russian but she never debuted for ’Zbornaya’. In 2005-06, she briefly played abroad, in Russia’s Dinamo Moscow (finishing league’s top scorer). Since 2010, she has been continuously playing outside Cuba (won four national championships with Ciudad Habana), on a club level. With Swiss Voléro Zürich, she won a total of two ’double crowns’. During two seasons with Russia’s Dinamo Krasnodar, Calderón won the Russian Cup and CEV Cup.
With the Cuba National Team for which she competed between 2001 and 2009, she earned a gold medal at the Pan American Games and Pan-American Cup (both in 2007), in addition to the NORCECA Championships and the Montreux Volley Masters. Individually, Calderón was named, among other awards, Best Spiker of the 2005 FIVB World Grand Prix, 2006 FIVB World Championship, 2008 Beijing Olympics, and 2013 CEV Champions League. Her last stop before coming to AEK was Turkey’s Bolu Bld.
The less known Cuban of these two, but undoubtedly quality player, Silva, also signed for AEK. A 30-year-old opposite hitter is the current member of her country’s national team. Silva spent the last two seasons in Polish TAURON Liga, winning the title of the Polish champion and the Polish Cup winner in 2020 (MVP) and the Polish Super Cup winner a year earlier (MVP). She achieved so with Grupa Azoty Chemik Police, while she wore the jersey of IŁ Capital Legionovia Legionowo last season.
See our sections – Transfers – Done Deals and Transfers – Rumors.
