After nearly two years' absence from major international competitions, the Russian women's volleyball team seems to have saved all their best for the upcoming Olympics by continuing to playing "hide-and-seek" with the public.
The first 90-minute training session after they arrived?Beijing was shut down to media on Sunday morning though the schedule said it was open.
However, the shines of the team, the 2004 Athens silver medallist, was somehow hard to cover, especially after the return of the 33-year-old ace spiker Evgenia Estes (Artamonova), who has been haunted by injuries for years.
"The team is in good form and we have no injures," Giovanni Caprara, the team's head coach told Xinhua after the training session at the Beijing Sports University.
With four Olympic golds and five silvers in hand, Russia is regarded as one of the most powerful gold competitors, boasting of a number of tall, lean and formidable players such as Ekaterina Gamova, who stands at an incredible 202 cm, Yulia Merkulova (also 202 cm) and Elena Godina.
But the Italian played low key of the team's goal .
"We are here for a medal," said Caprara. "It is not important whether we can finish first in the group. The most important is to go into the quarterfinals."
Caprara took the reign of the team in 2005 and led an awe-inspiring squad to win the 2006 World Championship in Tokyo. However, the Russians surprisingly failed to qualify for the 2007 World Cup and the 2008 World Grand Prix.
"Missing these international competitions is not a good thing for us, it is hard to charge the opponents' chances and my players need some real tests," said the coach.
The real tests come soon as this time Russia is grouped with world's No.1 Brazil, second-ranked Italy, European rising force Serbia, Kazakhstan and Algeria in the preliminaries, but China is always on the Caprara's list of major rivals. The Chinese harvested a come-from-back win over the Russian after a breath-taking five-set tussle in Athens.
"It will be great if the two teams can meet in the final again, we will not lose the chance again," said Caprara.
Twelve women's teams are divided into two groups to compete in the preliminary round of the Olympic tournament in Beijing that run through Aug. 9-17. The knockout stage runs from Aug. 19 to 23. Russia will play their first match against Italy on August 9 at the tournament's opener.
(Xinhua News Agency August 3, 2008)