Children’s League breaks all records in Ukraine!

Despite the very challenging circumstances in Ukraine and consequently difficult economic conditions, the Ukrainian Volleyball Federation (UVF), in cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Youth and Sport, has found the possibility of carrying out national championships as well as the so-called ‘Children’s League’ among young boys and girls, born in 2006-2010, across a variety of age categories. Even under such difficult conditions, the number of participants and the number of games played have broken all previous records!

To start the ‘Children’s league’ in the current season, young girls born in 2007 played their matches at the College of Physical Education in Ivano-Frankivsk. In six days, 14 teams from different corners of Ukraine contested as many as 36 matches. The next stop of the league came in Cernovcy, where 15 teams of girls born in 2010 played 45 games between March 27 and April 1. On April 3-8 in Lutsk, at the local school, came together girls born in 2008, thus accounting for another 56 matches played. Finally, from April 24-30, 18 youth teams with players born in 2009 gathered in Kharkiv. At the local Lajar Palace, teams delivered a record number of 86 matches. Matches scheduled for the top, first and second division of the Ukrainian league have taken place at this very same venue too.

What is new and most important, for the first time all matches scheduled for the Ukrainian senior championship as well as for the ‘Children’s league’ were streamed live on YouTube. The finals were a real party, with the winners of the competition taking medals as well as volleyballs, and special souvenirs prepared for the most outstanding individual performers.

117 coaches attend seminar in Kharkiv

While the competition for youngsters born in 2009 was being held, as many as 117 coaches from across Ukraine came together in Kharkiv for a seminar. Psychologist Tatiana Guranska, who attended the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, delivered a workshop on ‘ways to read information and how to use it in the training process’. The physical trainer of VC Prometey, Oleksiy Garkov, discussed warming-up methods and exercises for the development of physical improvements among volleyball players.

The coaches of the U22 national teams, Andriy Levchenko and Andriy Romanovych, introduced the attendees to players’ interactions during training, which are meant to be as close as possible to the conditions of a competitive match, the methodology for training the basic volleyball skills, and the key position of the players in defending and attacking. Finally, the basic principles and analysis of the actions of athletes and teams, the work on the individual features of players, and the focus on building the basic qualities of a leader were discussed by the head coach of VSC Law Academy Kharkiv, Sergiy Kovalenko.