LA PAZ, Baja California Sur, June 6, 2022.- The sixth edition of the U21 Women’s Pan American Cup that kicks off on Tuesday in La Paz will grant two tickets for the 2023 age-group FIVB World Championship.
With ten competing teams, the two vacancies available at the qualifying tournament for the FIVB World Championship will automatically qualify two teams from the NORCECA Confederation and not of the South American Volleyball Confederations as only Argentina and Chile are taking part of the competition.
Marcelo Silva, Head Coach Argentina: “We’ve been preparing since April, our main goal here is to prepare for the South American qualifier to the World Championship in August. We are glad to be here, it’s a great opportunity to measure ourselves against interesting opponents; and I’ll evaluate my team”.
Carolyn O’Dwyer, Head Coach Canada: “We had a larger group training in Canada for ten days leading up, so we had a little bit of a longer period than we had in the past which was nice. I think with the change of the age-group we were able to bring some older athletes, giving us some more experience and our expectations are definitely high of what we can do this week, we hope to make Canada proud”.
Eduardo Guillaume, Head Coach Chile: “Getting back to compete is positive, in three years with this team we’ve only played five matches; we are really excited of being here, to have played several friendly matches against Mexico and on the eve of the competition. I’ve been working with this group of players for a long time, we have high expectations from them. They were born in 2004-2005. It will be a tough tournament because of the level of play, we want to qualify among the final four”.
Henry Rodríguez, Head Coach Costa Rica: “It’ll be interesting facing highly competitive teams. Our team is a U18 renovated squad, Central American champions, eight from that team and some others are U16. Our expectations are to improve, have good results and reach our U21 Central American Championship in July in good conditions to win the title”.
Rogelio Andrés Goytizolo, Head Coach Cuba: “As all the teams here, we are aiming for a good competition; our goal is to play the title match. We don’t know anything about our rivals, but our team has young athletes who desire a good outcome”.
Cristian Cruz, Head Coach Dominican Republic: “We had a good base camp, almost eight months working with this new group. This team participated at the U18 World Championship by ranking due to the Pandemic. We share a group with Puerto Rico and Cuba; we know that four players from Puerto Rico competed in Worlds and about Cuba we have no information. We are confident to be playing for medals”.
Marvin Ulloa, Head Coach Honduras: “We just had access to our gymnasium in March. Half of the team was U19 and U20 Central American Champions and competed in last year’s senior Central American Championship. We are suffering the absence of two key players: Nathaly Pérez who is studying in the United States and our team captain Gabriela Gomez who has health issues. We made some internal adjustments, and we hope they understand each other well”.
Luis Alberto León, Head Coach Mexico: “The team is glad, motivated and anxious to begin to compete here in Mexico. This is a strong competition, eight teams from NORCECA fighting for two berths for the World Championship and our objective is one of those tickets”.
José Rivera, Head Coach Puerto Rico: “We renovated our squad for this event, this is the first international experience for 80% of the group and they have a better height, something we identified in the past world championship. The team is healthy and with good energy, excited to compete”.
Daniel Fisher, Head Coach United States: “We had a wonderful preparation, we were able to be with our senior team in Louisiana for the VNL, it was a nice opportunity to train in the morning and watch the matches at night and learn from them. We started seven days of training with 20 players and now we’re here with 12, we feel we have a strong team and excited to be here, we hope for the best”.
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