Lausanne, Switzerland, March 21, 2019 – Sergey Tetyukhin is the new general manager of the men’s national team of Russia, the Russian national federation announced on Wednesday. The legendary volleyballer, now 43 years old, joins the staff around recently appointed head coach Tuomas Sammelvuo ahead of the busy summer season for Sbornaya, which starts on May 31 with the first 2019 FIVB Volleyball Nations League match of the defending trophy-holders.
2012 Olympic champion and four-time Olympic medallist Tetyukhin finished his prominent professional athlete career in 2018. After 320 official caps with the national team and multiple medals and individual honours from major world-level and continental competitions, he stopped competing for Russia after the Rio Olympic Games in 2016.
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After their campaign to defend the VNL title, through the rest of the 2019 national team season, the Russians will take part in an Olympic qualification tournament at home, the CEV European Championship and the FIVB Volleyball World Cup. Alongside the appointment of Sergey Tetyukhin as general manager, the national federation also announced an extended list of 39 players, potential candidates to compete for Sbornaya.
“We selected these players very carefully. Since the national team season is very long and extremely intense, it was necessary to decide which volleyballers would play in the VNL and who would join the team a little later, focusing on the remaining competitions. We discussed the state of functional readiness and workload of all the players and worked out the main points of the training plan,” said Tetyukhin in his first official statement in the new role.