The Hindu : Sport / Volleyball : VFI geared up for major show

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 21, 2005

Sport

Sport - Volleyball

VFI geared up for major show

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: The focus of Asian volleyball is now shifting to India in general and to Chennai in particular as the metro is hosting the World senior men's volleyball championship qualifying tournament at the SDAT multipurpose indoor stadium here from June 24 to 26 and again July 1 to 3. Three Asian teams will make it to the main event in Tokyo in 2006.

For the first time, India is hosting this prestigious event. The VFI has been at it for the last one year and is now fully geared up for the major show.

On Monday, the Indian Postal Department came out with a first day postal cover at a function, chaired by B. Sivanthi Adityan, Executive Vice President, FIVB, and President, VFI.

Mr. Adityan thanked the Postal Department for its wonderful gesture and explained how India had reached a ranking of No. 27 out of 218 playing countries. He said that the popularity of the sport in the country and its achievements had prompted the federation to take up this challenging job of hosting such an important event.

Mrs. Vatsala Raghu, Principal Chief Post Master General, TN Circle, expressed her happiness in being associated with such a big event and handed over the first day cover to J. Sridharan, Chief Commissioner of Central Excise, Chennai.

China, Indonesia, Thailand and India are playing in the first phase from June 24. With Kazakhstan qualifying from another Asian qualifier Korea is likely to figure in the second phase here.

Earlier, Mr. Adityan inaugurated the FIVB's Information System Course called VIS. This course is to educate the local officials in assisting the visiting FIVB officials, Jury and International referees with computer evaluated details of all the matches. Tomasz Kuropka of Poland is the Director of the course, which concludes on June 24.

Thirty-two candidates from Sri Lanka, Maldives and India are participating.

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