PORTUGAL AND POLAND CONSIDER EACH OTHER AS FAVORITE

Final Olympic Qualification Tournament

Luxembourg, May 20, 2004. In their final chance to book a place for the Olympic Summer Games in Athens, the national men’s teams of Poland and Portugal face Kazakhstan and Venezuela in the Olympic Qualification tournament of Porto (POR) on three consecutive days, starting tomorrow.  

Even though the draw includes the strong South-American team of Venezuela, who has beaten the Polish national team in the past and recently also defeated World Champion Brazil, the two European teams of Poland and Portugal regard each other as the hottest contenders for the only Olympic ticket to be handed out at this Single Round Robin tournament.

In terms of head-to-head encounters at important competitions, such as the World League 2002 and the Men’s World Championships 2002, Portugal has so far retained an upper hand against Poland, but the Polish, coming from a country with a volleyball tradition, have shown extremely good results in the last competitions. However, their best opposite player Pawel Papke has undergone surgery shortly before the Polish team started their preparations for the Olympic Qualification tournament on April 23. Unfortunately, his substitute, 20-year-old Mariusz Wlazly, also has to miss out on the three matches in Porto given that he suffered an arm injury one week later. The Portuguese team on the other hand are able to line up promising youngsters such as Eden Sequeira and João Malveiro with only Adriano Paço being injured. Following their first place in Pool 1 at the Men’s European Championships Qualification in Guimaraes (POR), beating Hungary, Germany and Israel, the Portuguese squad competed in some friendly matches against Cuba and the Netherlands before starting their specific training schedule for the qualifying tournament in Porto. The Polish team played a total of nine international practice games in Poland and abroad ensuring sufficient preparation to compete for the much sought after ticket to the Olympic Games 2004.

Match schedule in Matosinhos, Porto (local time):

1 POL - VEN 21-May 18:00 2 POR - KAZ 21-May 20:00 3 KAZ - VEN 22-May 15:00 4 POR - POL 22-May 17:15 5 POL - KAZ 23-May 14:00 6 VEN - POR 23-May 16:00

More on the web at www.cev.lu

Enjoy & Be There:
10-13 June 2004: Beach Volleyball European Championships Final, Timmendorfer Strand, Germany.
8-11 July 2004: Under 20 European Beach Volleyball Championships, Lendava, Slovenia.
10-11 July 2004: Final Four European League, Opava, Czech Republic.
29 July – 1 August 2004: Under 23 European Beach Volleyball Championships, Brno, Czech Republic.
5-8 August 2004: Under 18 European Beach Volleyball Championships, Myslowice, Poland.
2 September 2004: Drawing of lots 2004-2005 Indesit European Champions’ League, Vienna, Austria.
3-11 September 2004: Women’s Under 19 European Championships, Bardejov, Presov, Slovakia.
4-12 September 2004: Men’s Under 20 European Championships, Zagreb, Croatia.