BeachvolleyballteamUK

Au Revoir Yerevan

What a moving and uniting experience it has been for us all. A landlocked country pummelled by those around it. Surviving because of courage, intellect and strong beliefs.

Unclear whether R&R have made it to the quarter or semi finals.. There seems to be an impasse a la Mediterranean chaos (and too many night events all round!). Either way, one of the team has to leave so Rob will need to find a sub for Rikki for the next round (cue: there's only one Rikki Tahta!!).

Armenia, we'll be back!

View of Mount Ararat

Hmmm a mystery gift

From the head of the volleyball association...now how did he know Rikki always wanted a card shuffler??

The good news and the bad news

So we won our match against Holland. It was always destined to be having had friendly playoffs and watched the Dutch in action. The bad news is that R&R didn't even have to play. The Dutch were so busy partying that they were not well enough to play (or were too frightened to confirm a forgone conclusion!!) so R&R were granted a walkover.
Ahh well. It was disappointing not to play the game and no chanting and cheering required. On a good note, more friendly play with the French has resulted in a rematch in France later this month as it turns out one of the players has family from Le Beausset!

Sent from my iPad

Match 2

Time to play Yerevan 3

An exciting game. First half was tight and exciting with lots of great action from the London team. Second half proved more difficult as the boys lost rhythm. Still we were battling against the odds as Rob rose from his deathbed, having being ill all night with the Armenian equivalent of Delhi belly! Kudos to him for rallying!
Score:
21:13, 21:9

Raffi our team organiser had LONDON t-shirts for the Yerevan team and they reciprocated with baseball hats for the boys. This was followed by friendly matches between R&R and Yerevan 2. Followed by the TV camera men joining in for a game (yes, R&R did beat them). Then the French followed suit. It highlighted the essence of sport: something fun. Many different languages exchanged and borders broken down by the love of the game. In the best of all possible worlds as Pangloss would say.

For those of you who insisted on seeing TV footage

Scroll into about 59 minutes for the game from yesterday

More tomorrow

Sent from my iPad

Go team go

The kit gets better as the show goes on

First match

Yerevan 1 versus London 

A tight game resulting in 21:7 and 21: 9. A win for Yerevan. 

Yerevan 1 are deemed to be the best team in the tournament so we felt the Londoners did well to scrounge as many points as they did. 

The Georgians and the Germans have cried off (must have been so impressed with R&R's warm up sessions). 

UK definitely won on the cheering front with strong representation chanting LONDON from the sides throughout!

Day off tomorrow. Off to Lake Sevan to cool off.

First game is tonight:

UK versus Yerevan 1. 5.30pm

Sent from my iPad

R&R

Sent from my iPad