Nigel Si­mon

Cuban phys­io­ther­a­pist Rolan­do Boza Cruz has joined the tech­ni­cal staff of the se­nior na­tion­al women's vol­ley­ball team for the up­com­ing Fourth Round FIVB NORCE­CA Women's World Cham­pi­onship Qual­i­fiers and Se­nior Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA), both sched­uled for here in T&T.

The high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed World Cham­pi­onship qual­i­fiers in­volv­ing host T&T, Mex­i­co, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Pana­ma and Nicaragua from which on­ly the win­ner will ad­vance to the World Cham­pi­onship in Italy in Sep­tem­ber takes place at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Sport and Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Cen­ter (UWIS­PEC), St Au­gus­tine from Ju­ly 16 un­til Ju­ly 20.

Cruz ad­di­tion to the staff comes af­ter re­quests were made to have a phys­io­ther­a­pist on board and he will be no stranger to the play­ers as he pre­vi­ous­ly worked with the team, as re­cent as the Third Round World Cham­pi­onship Qual­i­fiers which were held in Cu­ba in May, where T&T end­ed sec­ond to the host coun­try.

He is ex­pect­ed to aid the play­ers in their re­cov­ery as the train­ing sched­ule has been in­creased to two train­ing ses­sions per day un­der the guid­ance of for­mer as­sis­tant coach Nichol­son Drakes, who has tak­en charge of the team fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Cuban Fran­cis­co "Panchee" Cruz (no re­la­tion to Roland) ear­li­er this month.

Oth­er mem­bers of the coach­ing staff are Idalmis Moya Gato (as­sis­tant coach), Sean Mor­ri­son (as­sis­tant coach), Es­seil Seecha­ran (as­sis­tant coach), and Ian Williams (mas­sage ther­a­pists).

T&T's prepa­ra­tions for the qual­i­fiers suf­fered a blow with set­ter Renele Forde be­ing ruled out due to in­jury.

A key mem­ber of the team and for­mer Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent-ath­lete, Forde, the first choice set­ter suf­fered a sea­son end­ing left thigh in­jury at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed 13th Pan Amer­i­can Women's Cup in Mex­i­co where T&T was beat­en by the host,

Apart from Forde, who was al­so a mem­ber of the team which missed out on qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the World Cham­pi­onship four years ago af­ter get­ting to the fi­nal round of qual­i­fiers, all oth­er mem­bers of the team who were in­volved in Mex­i­co and the Third Round qual­i­fiers held in Cu­ba, are in train­ing.

The win­ner of the qual­i­fiers will go di­rect­ly in­to group C of the 24 team FIVB World Cham­pi­onship and would be based in the Verona for the first round match­es against USA, Rus­sia, Thai­land, Nether­lands and Kaza­khstan.

For the tour­na­ment, teams and of­fi­cials are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in T&T on Mon­day, while match­es and the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny are sched­uled for Wednes­day from 4 pm.

Ad­mis­sion is $20 for adults and $10 for chil­dren and the pub­lic is be­ing asked to come out in their num­bers wear­ing red, white and black to sup­port the na­tion­al team as they aim to make the best of this fi­nal op­por­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate his­to­ry for them­selves and this coun­try.

NORCE­CA Women's Fi­nal Round

Qual­i­fiers Fix­tures:

Ju­ly 16:

Mex­i­co vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, 6 pm

T&T vs Nicaragua, 8 pm

Ju­ly 17:

Cos­ta Ri­ca vs Nicaragua, 6 pm

T&T vs Pana­ma, 8 pm

Ju­ly 18:

Pana­ma vs Mex­i­co, 6 pm

T&T vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, 8 pm

Ju­ly 19:

Pana­ma vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, pm

Mex­i­co vs Nicaragua, pm

Ju­ly 20:

Pana­ma vs Nicaragua, 4 pm

T&T vs Mex­i­co, 6 pm

Clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny, 8 pm.

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