Welcome Europe to Gothenburg!

Wow! Only one week ago it looked like this at Beach Center Riviera:

Beachvolley training groups in full action at GBC Beach Center in Gothenburg Sweden

Now one week later we instead have a big Center Court and totally three Side Courts built up for U20 European Championships 2019. During two days now I’ve had the opportunity to welcome over 100 players from 31 countries in Europe to our magnificant Beach Center in Gothenburg, what a privilege! I wish I had studied more languages than English and some German 🙂

Together with GBC member Agnetha Olsson I am responsible for the service for players and spectators. A great volunteer job! We have given the accreditation and the welcome information to all players and their coaches so they can enter all areas. For example 2nd floor in Beach Center with restaurant and dressing rooms is for accreditation only during the tournament.

Players and their coaches arriving at Beach Center and get information from volunteer service responsible Agnetha Olsson.

At the evening the day before the tournament starts, it is ”Preliminary inquiry” (”Inskrivning” in Swedish) during 2,5 hours. And after that the drawing of matches, who is playing against who, is done. Then follows the Technical meeting (as in any tournamnet) where all practical information about playing in the tournament is presented.

The Preliminary inquiry requiers efficiency because all 128 players shall be registered properly and get all information within a resonable time frame!

Efficiency – Techical Supervisor and NF Delegate controlling identity and documents, Peter Appelgren controls the match linnen and enter players info in the match system, Sandra Krook and Linda Grönberg hand out water bottles, accreditations and control payments of the registration fee.

For both practical and environmental reasons we hand out water bottles to all players so they can fill them with tap water. A privilege in Sweden where we have so good quality on the water.

The drawing of matches, who will play against who, sometimes takes quite a long time because there is a number of rules that it can make  it necessary to re-draw one stage. The draw is always very interesting for everybody because it affects which teams you will play against, exciting!

The draw is managed by our CEV Technical Supervisor Anton Fichtinger from Austria and everybody can follow it on a screen.

At the same time outside on the Center Court a training match is just about to start. The purpose is for some of the volunteers to practice how to do the scoring, the ”bollrullande” and so on.

Referee Ina Huttenberger is checking with the scorers if they are ready to start the game, scorer Sarka Gaisler is preparing.

On behalf of all 1500 members of GBC, we say very WELCOME Europe to Gothenburg and we wish all guests a pleasant stay. We are looking forward to enjoy spectacular matches with talanted junior players from as many as 31 countries!

Anneli Friborg, GBC President

This time (compared to the World Tour two months ago) the trees are green and the time of the year allows us to play beachvolley outdoors!