Beach volleyballers leave for camp on Gold Coast

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The National, Wednesday July 3rd, 2013

 By JACK AMI

THE Papua New Guinea beach volleyball team will attend a high performance training camp on the Gold Coast, Australia, from July 5-10.

The team leaves at 6am tomorrow and returns on July 11.

They were farewelled by PNG Sports Foundation executive director Iammo Launa, Pacific Games Justification Committee chairman Edris Kumburawah, Team PNG general manager to Wallis and Futuna John Susuve and PNG Volleyball Federation president Bernard Alu.

This trip was made possible through national government funding for the Grassroots to Gold and Go for Gold programme.

The sport was one of the first recipients and received  K70,000.

Team manager John Paliau said it was a good opportunity for local players to prepare for the Mini Pacific Games in Wallis and Futuna and the 2015 Pacific Games in Port Moresby.

This training camp is a joint effort with the Gold Coast Academy of Sports and Gold Coast Volleyball in partnership with Griffin University and Student Guild (Griffin University, Gold Coast) programme.

In May, beach volleyball underwent skill drills from the Gold Coast Sports Academy’s programme manager and head coach Aaron Alsop .

This camp will improve on that with the high quality facilities players will train in.

New faces to attend the camp are junior development officer Harry Omoa, females Tina Ono and Kemmy Manoni and women’s senior player Mera Rupa. The others are Age Walo, Richard Batari, Hazel Ruga and Catherine Bird.

The coach is Dorothy Eliakim Kivung and team manager Paliau.

Paliau said the team had prepared for three months to attend this programme and everyone was looking forward to it.

He said the sport would benefit from such camps.