Cuba and U.S. Volleyball Teams Play First Friendly Match today. (Photo: Internet)
Cuba will come up against the United States today in the first of two friendly games scheduled between the two men’s volleyball squads, at the Ciudad Deportiva Coliseum in Havana.
The Cuban and U.S. players will take advantage of the game as part of their training for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, scheduled for August 5-21, ACN reported on June 4.
The northerners obtained the ticket to the Rio de Janeiro competition at the 2015 World Cup in Japan, where they ranked first, while Cuba obtained its ticket by winning the gold medal in the Olympic qualifiers this year in Edmonton, Canada.
Cuban coach Rodolfo Sánchez will direct the team that includes most of the young athletes that won in the continental tournament, led by Livan Osoria, who concluded his contract with the Argentinean League.
Joining Osoria will be the other three who played with foreign teams, headed by Captain Rolando Cepeda and Javier Jiménez, in Greece, and Osmani Uriarte, also in Argentina.
Completing the Cuban team are Abrahan Alfonso, Luis Sosa, Ricardo Calvo, Adrian Goire, Dariel Albo, Osniel Melgarejo, Mario Rivera, Javier Concepción, Yonder GarcÃa and Reinier Rojas, the latter absent in Edmonton.
As announced by Ariel Sainz, president of the Cuban Federation, a group of sports stars, members of the group that won the bronze medal at the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, will be honored Saturday, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of that outstanding performance.
The group of sports stars is composed of former players VÃctor GarcÃa, Lorenzo MartÃnez, Alfredo Figueredo, Antonio RodrÃguez, Victoriano Sarmiento and Carlos Manuel Salas, and Idol Gilberto Jesús Herrera and Nelson Pollato, who were coaches of that team.
He also confirmed that the second friendly game will take place on Monday, at the same place.
