Holidays in the north

Belgorod won all six matches of an unprecedented tour

The two best Russian clubs completed the first round of the men's volleyball Champions League on a positive note. The two-time winner of the title of the strongest club on the continent, the seven-time Russian champion Lokomotiv-Belogorye, playing in Group A, won a strong-willed victory over the local Buducnost in a difficult five-set match in the capital of Montenegro Podgorica - 3:2 (25:19, 23 :25, 22:25, 25:19, 15:9). Moscow Dynamo in quintet “B” hosted the finalist of the 2002 tournament “Olympiacos” from the Athens suburb of Piraeus and also won - 3:0 (25:21, 25:18, 25:14). For the first time after a long pause due to treatment, former central blocker of Belgorod Alexey Kuleshov played for the “blue and white” team. Both the railway workers and Dynamo took first place in their groups before the start of the second round.

The fifth round of the Champions League was preceded by an almost month-long break due to the Grand Champions Cup being held in Japan. This tournament for national teams traditionally takes place every four years in the post-Olympic seasons, and the winners of continental championships participate in it. While the teams were preparing for battles in the Land of the Rising Sun, playing there and recovering from these competitions, life in the European Cups came to a standstill for some time. But this did not mean at all that the national championships stopped. On the contrary, in Russia, the Champions League participants played according to a very tight schedule in mid-November - early December. The removal of individual games from full-fledged tours, which regularly take place on weekends, was made deliberately by the schedule compilers - so that the clubs participating in the European Cups had at least some kind of pause between endless flights and travel.

However, there are no ideal calendars, and Lokomotiv Belgorod was prepared for the most difficult test - five consecutive away Super League matches without a home visit, plus a trip to Montenegro as part of the Champions League. Having packed their bags and set off on the road on November 18, the volleyball players of the most titled club in Russia returned home only late yesterday evening. And they returned to their native land, as they say, with a shield. In an unprecedented away series, the railway workers showed a 100% result - six wins in six matches!

Before the start of these volleyball tours, no one in the Belgorod club itself believed that this long road could be covered without losses. Of course, Loko went to matches with eastern rivals, who are especially strong on their court. In addition, Belgorod residents had to jump across several time and climate zones, competing in cities where active fans often become an extra player for the home team. Experts believed that it was impossible to beat so many strong opponents in a row “to order” away from home. This is Surgut “ZSK-Gazprom”, “Fakel” from Novy Urengoy, which has three (!) 1999 World Cup winners (Savelyev, Yakovlev and Ushakov), the current winner of the Country Cup “Dynamo-TTG” (Kazan), an ambitious debutant super league “Neftekhimik” (Salavat) and “Neftyanik Bashkortostan” (Ufa), which was at the head of the standings.

Moreover, if we compare the strength of all Lokomotiv’s opponents throughout the away series, then the last one, foreign – “Buducnost” (Serbia and Montenegro) was considered the simplest. The complexity of the situation was also in the fact that the main load on the tour fell on the shoulders of seven Belgorod players: Vadim Khamuttskikh, who celebrated his 36th birthday in Kazan, finishing players Sergei Tetyukhin and Alexander Kosarev, blockers Alexander Abrosimov and Alejandro Spayich, diagonal Sergei Baranov and libero Alexei Verbov. However, the head coach of our champion Gennady Shipulin was unshakable in his confidence; he believed that his players would survive this trip and Lokomotiv would never have to experience the bitterness of defeat.

Shipulin's optimism, based on the class of opponents and the inevitable difficulties of such a journey, was shared by few even in his club. The head coach even made a bet with one of his closest associates for a substantial amount. Shipulin’s colleague sincerely believed that it was unrealistic to do without at least one loss. But in the end he had to fork out the money. In Surgut and Novy Urengoy, the Belgorod team did not give up a single game - twice 3:0, in the capital of Tatarstan they pulled out a hard-fought victory - 3:2, in Salavat again 3:0 and in Ufa - 3:1 .

The capabilities of the human body are unlimited, and therefore “Buducnost” got a chance. However, tired and exhausted Belgorod residents found their last reserves and literally achieved a positive result in Montenegro. Tetyukhin brought the team 24 points, six of them with a block and three with serves, Baranov - 20, Spayich - 17. Kosarev, who eventually scored 15 points, baffled the Buducnost hosts with six deadly aces. In any other situation, the match against the Montenegrin club would have been a cakewalk or a game training session for the Belgorod team, but at the end of a long tour it turned into a five-set thriller. Thankfully it had a happy outcome.

Ilya TRISVIATSKY