adminZimbabwe in 2011 and has made some great strides with the teams winning several medals at regional tournaments.
ZVA president, Fredrick Ndlovu, said they were impressed with the progress the sport has made and have pledged their support towards the development of the sport throughout the country.
“I think we have done exceptionally well. Zimbabwe is a landlocked country and one of the fascinating things is that in all zonal, regional and continental events we have participated in we have managed to finish in the top.
“Last year we went to Namibia where our teams did well. Being a landlocked country, we are the only nation in the Southern Africa that has been doing well.
“Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa have natural beaches.
“As a start, obviously, you can see that there is hope for us and we are putting emphasis on beach volleyball,” said Ndlovu.
Ndlovu said it will be a bit easy to send beach volleyball teams for international events as it is cheaper since it does not involve a large number of players as compared to indoor volleyball.
“We need to treat things differently, as we try to assess what has been our biggest challenge in volleyball. We agreed to take part in the beach volleyball World Championships qualifiers. We agreed that we need to give beach volleyball some attention.
“For indoor, you need more people to participate in a competition and for beach volleyball we need half of that and it’s cheaper. Beach volleyball for now is the way to go. We are just waiting for the qualifiers’ dates to be confirmed.
“We also agreed to introduce a beach volleyball series because we never had beach volleyball on our calendar of events before,” said Ndlovu.
The support from the national association will go a long way in the development and growth of the sport that has been running in a few provinces, mainly Harare.
Online Reporter