Volleyball teams from Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago will participate in the second International Invitational Club Festival which commences tomorrow at the National Gymnasium.
This was disclosed by the Guyana Volleyball Federation (GVF) yesterday at a press briefing held in the boardroom of the Guyana National Stadium, Providence by President of the GVF Lennox Shuffler and Tournament Coordi-nator, Captain John Flores.
According to Shuffler the festival is part of the GVF’s “Block Development Plan” which was designed
to promote increased activity among neighbouring countries at an affordable cost and to provide international exposure to players in Guyana.
A small number of teams such as Big SEPOS from Trinidad and Yelyco from Suriname will come up against some of Guyana’s top clubs Young Achievers, Port Mourant Training Centre (PMTC) and Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Combined.
Yelyco for the last three years has been Suriname’s champion team while Big SEPOS lost to Roraima of Brazil in the final of the inaugural Tradewind Tankers International Invitational Volleyball Tournament last year held at the National Gymnasium.
It was disclosed that Young Achievers, PMTC and GDF Combined have been training very hard as of late and have been involved in various tournaments.
With players such as Quacy Matheson and national U19 captain Creston Rodney representing Guyana, Flores said that he was optimistic that the local teams could hold their own.
On the female side, the newly-formed Vanguard Female team will come up against Yelyco females in a Goodwill Series which will feature one match per day, while the males will engage in a “round-robin” format of games each day.
Meanwhile, Shuffler hinted that next year holds great things for the fraternity as the federation will be pumping time and efforts into the rejuvenation of the sport across the three respective counties.
The tournament is set to officially get underway with the Opening Ceremony at 5:00pm and will continue on Saturday at 10:00am.
The competition will conclude on Sunday with the semi-finals and final. Spike-off time is 11am.
The closing ceremony is scheduled for 7:00pm and admission is free throughout the festival.
