Volleyball
The DOL will start at 10.30 am local time and results will be available on the CEV website at around noon. In the meantime, the organizers have announced the teams that will be heading the four preliminary Pools, with Germany playing in Halle/Westphalen, Switzerland in Zurich while Russia and Poland were assigned to the two remaining venues, namely Dresden and Schwerin respectively.
The sixteen teams participating in the final round will be distributed across four pools of four teams each. A first group of teams to be drawn includes 2011 European champions Serbia, the bronze medalists of the past edition, Turkey, the 2007 and 2009 European champions of Italy plus one winner of the second round qualifiers completed this past September (to be drawn before the start of the real DOL). The second draw includes four more winners of the European qualifiers while the last comprises the remaining winner of the second round Pools plus the three winners of the home/away matches scheduled for May/June 2013 (where Ukraine will play France, the Czech Republic take on Romania and Slovakia battle it with Belarus).
Germany will be returning to the “Gerry Weber Stadion” in Halle for the second time after the group mentored by Italian-born Giovanni Guidetti qualified for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing via the tournament held there. The Swiss team will try to make it to the second round via the help of the home supporters in Zurich while Poland and Russia will delight the audience in Schwerin and Dresden, two of the real Volleyball “Meccas” there in Germany.
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