The Hindu : Sport / Volleyball : Chennai gearing up for World qualifiers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 08, 2005

Sport

Sport - Volleyball

Chennai gearing up for World qualifiers

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, APRIL 7 . The City is getting ready for a mega volleyball event in June-July. A fortnight ago it hosted the lots ceremony of the 13th World junior men volleyball championship, to be held at Visakhapatnam in August. Now it is preparing to organise the World senior men's championship qualifying round for the first time.

In the last World championship (at Buenos Aires in 2002) qualifier, India — involved in a three-way tie — failed to qualify by a whisker. But this time, apart from the host Japan, five Asian outfits — — three teams from here and another two from the other Asian qualifier — are going to make it to the final show. "So we have a very good chance of figuring in the Tokyo championship. This is why we have opted for the qualifier here this year," said B. Sivanthi Adityan, Executive Vice President, FIVB, and President, VFI, at a press meet here on Thursday.

He also said the GKM Volleyball Foundation, which organised two National events well before in Chennai, was entrusted with the conduct of the events.

China, India and Indonesia have already booked berths for the first phase qualifier, to be held at the SDAT multipurpose indoor stadium here from June 24 to 26. Apart from these three, one more side is to be announced later. Whoever wins this first phase automatically qualifies for the World championship. But the runner-up will meet the two qualifiers (from Korea, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Iran, UAE, Thailand, Jordan, Oman, Maldives, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Chinese-Taipei) who come for the second phase, to be held at the same venue from July 1 to 3. From among these three the winner and runner-up would figure in the Tokyo tournament. In all 24 squads from five continents will battle for the World title in 2006.

The main stadium is being spruced up for the championship and Santhome and JJ indoor stadiums are to be used as practice venues.

The Steering Committee has been formed with the following members: Messrs. Inbathtamilan, TN Minister for Sports, Karate R. Thyagarajan, Deputy Mayor, W.I. Davaram, Vice President, SDAT, V. Vikram Reddy, MD, Nutrine, K. Gopalan, IRS, Chief Commissioner, IT, J. Sreedharan, IRS, Chief Commissioner, CE, R. Nataraj, Commissioner of Police, K. Vijay Kumar, Addl. DGP, K. Suresh, IAS, Chairman, CPT, M. Veeraiyan, IRS, Commissioner, Customs, P.W.C. Davidar, Member Secretary, SDAT, V. Kamaraja, IPS. DIG, CISF, Airport, M.P. Vijayakumar, IAS, Corpn. Commissioner, M. Ajith Kumar, IRS, Commissioner (Seaport), C. Sylendra Babu, IPS, Jt. Commissioner and G. Kishore, Director, SAI, Bangalore.

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