Wagrain-Kleinarl, Austria, March 29, 2019 – Who would have thought? A game between USA and Cameroon was decided in a tie-break! In snow volleyball that is...
With the inaugural FIVB Snow Volleyball World Tour underway in Wagrain-Kleinarl, the sport has reached new territories with teams from all five continents taking part in main draw action on the spectacular snow slopes of the Austrian Alps. The FIVB, together with the CEV, have successfully made the first step towards the globalization of snow volleyball to give even countries where snow is rarely on the weather forecast a chance to participate in winter sports.
Spectacular spike by Cameroon’s Boyomo in their game against USA
One of the teams representing Africa is the men’s team of Cameroon - three guys, who not only have never played snow volleyball, but have never played beach volleyball either. Yet, in their debut game on the Wagrain-Kleinarl centre court, Joseph Herve Kofane Boyomo, Didier Sali Hile and Guy Roger Nanga, all coming from indoor volleyball, had a solid lead in the decisive third set, before eventually losing to their American opponents.
“It was something interesting, because this is the first time we play snow volleyball,” Nanga, captain of the team, said. “First, we had to find out how to move on the court, and it was a little bit difficult for us to improve our game. We missed some serves at the end of the tie-break and lost 2-1 to USA. So we will try to improve our serving in the next games.”
“I am the head coach of the men’s national volleyball team of Cameroon, but I live in France. So the president of our federation asked me to find some people who can join our snow volleyball team. Both my teammates play volleyball in the first division of France. They are both good indoor players, but had never played on sand or snow before,” Nanga said.
“We are very, very happy to be here,” he continued. “We want to thank the International Volleyball Federation for inviting us to play here and represent Africa. We were given the opportunity to come some days before the tournament in order to practice on the snow and get used to both the rules and the techniques, which we did. I believe that we will play even better next week, at the tournament in Italy. If we get invited again, we would like to play this game more often. It is great for the popularity of all three disciplines back in Cameroon and in Africa, in general. I think it would be very good to have more African teams participating in future tournaments.”
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