Almaty, Kazakhstan, May 30, 2006 -- Vladimir Kondra, head coach of the Kazakhstan men's national team, has set his aim for the FIVB World Championships in Japan in November. That is to enter the second round.
The head coach, an Olympic Games gold medal-winner with USSR in 1980, said: "Every competitor in our group is worthy of special attention."
Kazakhstan has been drawn into Pool D and will play in Sendai against Russia, Serbia & Montenegro, Canada, Tunisia and Korea.
"However, our players will do their best to qualify for the second round. It is our main and realistic target for the 2006 World Championships," said Kondra, who was named head coach six months ago.
"Much depends on the mental approach and actions of the team leaders, Svyatoslav Miklashevich and Marat Imangaliyev."
The Kazakhstan Volleyball Association has drawn up a detailed World Championships preparation program divided into training camps and warm-up matches.
They had their first training camp from April 24 to May 17 in Almaty and the second will take place from June 23 to July 6 in Antalya, Turkey. The team will have five more training camps before the World Championships.
Besides the camps, the Kazakhstan team will play friendly matches in Lahti, Finland, from July 9-21, host the Cup of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan international tournament in Almaty from August 27-September 4, and have friendly matches in Moscow in September and in China in October.
Kazakhstan has been making impressive progress in recent years and now is one of the strongest teams in Asian. The team defeated Korea 3-1 in an Asian second round qualification tournament in Almaty last June to book a ticket to the World Championships in Japan.
The Kazakhstan Volleyball Federation has also announced a list of 19 candidate players for the national team. Most of them come from two major clubs: nine from Rahat Almaty, and five from Atyrau.
The players are Dmitriy Gorbatkov, Marat Imangaliyev, Svyatoslav Miklashevich, Andrey Pimakhin, Alexey Stepanov, Sergey Trikoz, Dmitriy Chernenko, Anton Yudin, Yuriy Stulov (all Rahat), Vladimir Derevyanko, Ilya Zinkin, Kirill Konovalov, Andrey Koksharev, Yevgeniy Senatorov (all Atyrau), Kairat Baibekov (Kondensat, Uralsk), Yevgeniy Andreyev (Kuat-Semey, Semipalatinsk), Sergey Smirnov, Anton Rubtsov (both Nova, Novokuibyshevsk) and Denis Zhukov (TOAC TUK, France).
(Olga ROMANOVA, Head of International Department, Volleyball Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan)
