Translated material
Names of the great
Cup week has begun in Russian volleyball
The competition schedule for our volleyball clubs in the second half of December turned out to be more than extremely dense. Last week the matches of the third round of the Champions League and the tenth round of the men's super league took place, and the cup week started yesterday. The “Final Four” of the women’s competition, dedicated to the memory of the great mentor Givi Akhvlediani, is taking place in Omsk. And here tomorrow the first ever All-Star Game of Russian women's volleyball will take place. Then the baton will be taken up by men who, from December 24 to 27, in the “Final Eight” format, will determine the winner of the Konstantin Reva Open Cup in Kaliningrad. After this, Super League games will resume, with players from all men's teams and half of the women's clubs having to take to the court on the penultimate day of 2009 - December 30.The first semi-final of the Women's Cup "Dynamo" (Moscow) - "Uralochka" was initially devoid of intrigue. The management of the Yekaterinburg club showed disrespect for the tournament by delegating the second team to the Final Four. Yesterday, Ural girls’ coach Nikolai Karpol, who will lead the World Stars team at the All-Star Game on December 23, was not on the coaching bridge; he was replaced in the semifinals by Victor Bardock. The position of a participant in the decisive stage of the cup competition looks more than strange, because setter Marina Sheshenina, finishing player Evgenia Artamonova (Estes) and Bulgarian blocker Strashimira Filipova are still arriving in Omsk, since they were selected to be part of the teams for the All-Star Game. It turned out that “Uralochka” in the Russian Cup became a kind of dog in the manger - neither for itself nor for people. Let us remind you that at the second group stage in Belgorod, the Ekaterinburg team received the right to continue the fight for the trophy, having outstripped last year’s winner of the draw, the local “University-Tekhnolog” in terms of goal ratio, with equal victories and games. One can only regret that the “students” did not have enough luck in several episodes. If they had been in first place, the Omsk Final Four would have happened without profanation.
In the second match on Monday, Omsk's American recruit, silver medalist of the Beijing Olympics, libero Stacey Sikora made her debut on the Russian arena. It is interesting that, at the insistence of Karpol, she was included in the “Stars of the World” at the stage of negotiations with the Omsk club. By the way, recently a new women's volleyball organization, WNVA, was created in the United States, which has as its main program goal the creation of a professional league in the States. This is not the first time such attempts have been made, but they have not yet resulted in anything concrete. Therefore, most likely, the best American players will compete in foreign championships for many years to come.
The owners of the site were unable to cope with the girls from Zarechye-Odintsovo yesterday. Today, Dynamo and Moscow region volleyball players, together with the Russian Cup, will compete for a ticket to the 2010/11 Champions League. Ekaterinburg and Omsk residents will compete for third place.
The tenth round of the men's super league played last weekend turned out to be unique in the sense that in five pairs out of six there were teams that occupied neighboring places in the table - first and second, third and fourth, fifth and sixth, eighth and ninth, last and penultimate. In the main match of the tour, the current champion Zenit strengthened its leadership by defeating Iskra near Moscow. The Kazan team is still unbeaten, having won five victories each at home and away.
In the only match where the opponents were not neighbors in the table, the diagonal of the Russian national team and Yaroslavich, Maxim Mikhailov, scored 35 points. This is the fifth time in the tournament that he has surpassed the grandmaster scoring mark of three dozen points. Yaroslavets has won a double-digit number of goals for his team in 55 Super League matches in a row. This scoring super series began more than two years ago - December 15, 2007.
Dmitry Krasikov, who moved from Lokomotiv-Belogorye to Gazprom-Yugra on loan, set a personal record for scoring (23 points). In the battle of outsiders, the Surgut team turned out to be stronger than the debutant of high society Tyumen, which will probably have to leave the elite division at the end of the championship.
For the first time since playing in the Super League, the capital's Dynamo team will finish the first round in the bottom half of the table. Fans of the Blue and White, who had a terrible start to this season, seemed to have some hope after victories over Iskra and Yaroslavich, and a successful match with the Greek Olympiacos in the Champions League. However, then there was a deafening fiasco on the continental arena in the game with the Italian Trento, and now another, fourth home defeat - from the Novosibirsk Lokomotiv. The gap between the teams in fifth and sixth place has increased from six to eight points.
For the first time in the championship, Lokomotiv-Belogorye did not earn a single point. Gennady Shipulin's team suffered three previous defeats in tiebreakers, but this time they could not oppose anything to the Novy Urengoy "Fakel", who won their fourth victory in a row. Lokomotiv-Izumrud, playing without its key player Alexander Gerasimov (he is injured and will not recover soon), interrupted a series of three failures and will try not to be among the two outsiders who are in danger of parting with the elite.
Results. Super League. Men. 10th round. "Lokomotiv-Izumrud" - "Yaroslavich" - 3:2 (25:22, 19:25, 23:25, 25:21, 15:12), "Fakel" - "Lokomotiv-Belogorye" - 3 :0 (25:23, 25:21, 25:19), "Tyumen" - "Gazprom-Yugra" - 1:3 (17:25, 26:24, 32:34, 22:25), " Zenit - Iskra - 3:0 (25:21, 25:18, 25:23), Dynamo Yantar - Ural - 1:3 (25:20, 24:26, 21:25, 27:29), "Dynamo" M -- "Lokomotiv" NS -- 0:3 (23:25, 19:25, 20:25). Russian Cup named after. Givi Akhvlediani. Women. Semi-final. "Dynamo" M -- "Uralochka-NTMK" -- 3:0 (27:25, 25:19, 25:22), "Omichka" -- "Zarechye-Odintsovo" -- 0:3 (22:25, 23:25, 20:25).
Super League. Men
| 1. Zenit | 10 | 10 (4) | 0 (0) | 30:10 | 26 |
| 2. "Torch" | 10 | 8 (2) | 2 (0) | 25:13 | 22 |
| 3. "Spark" | 10 | 7 (1) | 3 (1) | 23:13 | 21 |
| 4. Lokomotiv Ns | 10 | 6 (0) | 4 (3) | 25:15 | 21 |
| 5. “Lokomotiv-Belogorye” | 10 | 6 (1) | 4 (3) | 24:15 | 20 |
| 6. Dynamo M | 10 | 4 (1) | 6 (1) | 18:22 | 12 |
| 7. "Ural" | 10 | 4 (2) | 6 (2) | 17:24 | 12 |
| 8. "Yaroslavich" | 10 | 3 (1) | 7 (3) | 18:25 | 11 |
| 9. "Lokomotiv-Izumrud" | 10 | 4 (2) | 6 (0) | 14:24 | 10 |
| 10. "Dynamo-Yantar" | 10 | 3 (1) | 7 (1) | 16:24 | 9 |
| 11. Gazprom-Yugra | 10 | 3 (0) | 7 (0) | 13:24 | 9 |
| 12. "Tyumen" | 10 | 2 (1) | 8 (2) | 13:27 | 7 |
Note: wins and losses in tiebreakers are in brackets.