Belogorie
The only ones to miss the press conference were setter Dragan Travica – a bronze medallist from the 2012 London Olympics and silver medallist at this year’s CEV VELUX EuroVolley – and Russian superstar Dmitriy Muserskiy, MVP of the European Championship that drew to a close this past September 29 in Copenhagen and the real match winner for Russia in the Olympic final with Brazil.
Travica just got his visa to Russia and was set to arrive in Belgorod on Thursday so as to join the training scheduled for Friday. Muserskiy, on the other hand, got some extra days to recover from a long and busy season with the national team. 2013 European champion Dmitry Ilinykh and Maxim Zhigalov, a gold medallist and MVP from the Summer Universiade in Kazan, were there to answer the questions asked by the fans and media.
Gennady Shipulin introduced the players that joined this past summer Russia’s national champions as well as winners of the 2013 Russian Cup. These are Maxim Panteleymonenko, who last year had played for Ural UFA, middle-blocker Alexander Bogomolov who previously represented the likes of Zenit KAZAN and Iskra ODINTSOVO, and the former libero of Dinamo MOSCOW Roman Bragin. Two more players, libero Khachatur Stepanyan and setter Sergey Bagrey, are returning back to Belgorod after three years. Stepanyan previously played in Moscow for Dinamo while Bagrey spent two seasons in Ekaterinburg and the last one playing for Kuzbass KEMEROVO in Siberia. The players added to the roster for the coming season all received their official playing jersey by head coach Shipulin and promised they would do their best to help the club achieve the goals set for the 2013/2014 season.
Belogorie BELGOROD is coming back in Europe’s elite club competition, the CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League, after a long absence. The team was assigned to preliminary Pool B alongside Belgium’s Noliko MAASEIK, VK OSTRAVA of the Czech Republic and Olympiacos PIRAEUS of Greece.
“Our club has set the highest goals for the coming season and the CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League is not an exception in this sense” said Shipulin. “We want to make the podium though gold would be the best option. We are not the only ones who can make it there but our goal is to win the Champions League so as to get the right to participate in next year’s Club World Championships”.
Belogorie BELGOROD will debut this coming October 23 hosting Noliko MAASEIK and Shipulin said his team is planning to start strong right from the first game to delight the fans as well as their main sponsor Metalloinvest Holding.
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To read more about this competition check out our CEV Champions League 2013/2014 M coverage page.
