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Thursday, July 24, 2025

T&T opens CAZOVA medal quest against Curacao and Martinique

by

23 days ago
20250702

NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

T&T men and women teams will open their cam­paigns in the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (T&TVF) host­ed Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) Un­der-23 Cham­pi­onship at the Mal­oney In­door Sport­ing Fa­cil­i­ty on Ju­ly 10.

In the men’s four-team tour­na­ment, the Essiel Seecha­ran-coached T&T squad will serve off their ti­tle am­bi­tions ver­sus Mar­tinique in the fi­nal match of the open­ing day of com­pe­ti­tion, while Guade­loupe and Suri­name face off in the open­er from 12 noon.

They will then meet Guade­loupe on Fri­day, Ju­ly 11, from 6 pm, fol­lowed by Suri­name in their fi­nal round-robin match on Sat­ur­day, Ju­ly 12, from 8 pm, at the end of which the top two teams will con­test the gold medal match on Sun­day, Ju­ly 13, from 6 pm, while the third and fourth place round-robin fin­ish­ers clash for the bronze medal from 2 pm.

The lo­cal men will con­tin­ue to fine-tune their prepa­ra­tions for the tour­na­ment with train­ing ses­sions card­ed for the rest of the week: at Aranguez North Sec­ondary School to­day from 8 pm to 10 pm; to­mor­row at Aranguez North Sec­ondary from 7 pm to 10 pm; Fri­day at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Pleas­antville from 7 pm to 10 pm; and on Sat­ur­day at the tour­na­ment venue in Mal­oney from 12 noon to 2 pm.

In the women’s seg­ment of the com­pe­ti­tion, the T&T women, un­der the guid­ance of head coach

De­on Hutchin­son be­gins their cam­paign ver­sus Cu­ra­cao at 6 pm, with Mar­tinique and Suri­name meet­ing in the first match at 2 pm.

The ‘Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers’ then come up against Mar­tinique on Fri­day, Ju­ly 11, from 8 pm, and Suri­name on Sat­ur­day, Ju­ly 12, and at the end of their round-robin se­ries, the top two teams will clash for the CA­ZO­VA crown on Sun­day, Ju­ly 13, from 4 pm, pre­ced­ed by the bronze medal du­el from 2 pm be­tween the teams that fin­ish third and fourth on the ta­ble.

In prepa­ra­tion for the tour­na­ment, lo­cal na­tion­al coach­es De­on Hutchin­son (women un­der-23) and Seecha­ran (men un­der-23) have both short­list­ed a squad of 15 play­ers each, who will con­tin­ue train­ing four days per week

From the 15 play­ers, a fi­nal squad of 12 play­ers will be named by Hutchin­son and Seecha­ran for their re­spec­tive teams for the du­ra­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion.

The lo­cal women’s team will re­sume their train­ing ses­sions on Thurs­day and Fri­day both at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Tacarigua from 9 pm to 11 pm, fol­lowed by an­oth­er ses­sion on Sun­day at Mal­oney from 10.30 am to 1 pm.

Mush­taque Mo­hammed, Pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, in look­ing ahead to the tour­na­ment, said an as­so­ci­a­tion, CA­ZO­VA, was re­al­ly hap­py to fi­nal­ly see the tour­na­ment come to fruition.

The tour­na­ment for the men was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for the Cay­man Is­lands, but be­cause of some chal­lenges they had, the T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion has tak­en up the chal­lenge to stage the event along with host­ing the women’s com­pe­ti­tion.

Mo­hammed not­ed that the tour­na­ment is be­ing used as a qual­i­fi­ca­tion tour­na­ment for the Un­der-23 NORCE­CA Con­ti­nen­tal Pan Amer­i­can Cup Cham­pi­onship and will al­so pave the way for the teams that par­tic­i­pate in the Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship, which is held every qua­dren­ni­al, and this year it will be held in Asun­ción, Paraguay.

How­ev­er, this year’s qual­i­fi­ca­tion tour­na­ment is not for that spe­cif­ic com­pe­ti­tion and will serve as plan­ning in prepa­ra­tion for the next qua­dren­ni­al Pan Amer­i­can Ju­nior Cham­pi­onship.

With just over a week to the serv­ing off of the tour­na­ment, the T&TVF is still on the hunt for $1.5 mil­lion to as­sist with the host­ing and par­tic­i­pa­tion of its na­tion­al team in no few­er than five re­gion­al in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments.

The T&T is set to host the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) Un­der-23 Cham­pi­ons at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na from Ju­ly 9-14, while the na­tion­al teams are ex­pect­ed to com­pete in the NORCE­CA Se­nior Women’s Fi­nal Four in Puer­to Ri­co from Ju­ly 16-21, fol­lowed by the CA­ZO­VA U-17 Cham­pi­onships in Ja­maica from Ju­ly 28 to Au­gust 4, the Pan Amer­i­can Cup Se­nior Women’s Cham­pi­onship from Au­gust 1-11, and the CA­ZO­VA Se­nior Cham­pi­onships from Au­gust 14-24.

Ac­cord­ing to TTVF pres­i­dent Daymien Stew­art, the lo­cal fed­er­a­tion finds it­self in a race against time to get the much-need­ed fi­nan­cial sup­port for the de­mand­ing yet promis­ing in­ter­na­tion­al sea­son.

Look­ing ahead, Stew­art boast­ed the in­ter­na­tion­al in­door sea­son promis­es an ex­cit­ing line­up of com­pe­ti­tions be­gin­ning right here in T&T Ju­ly 9-14, where our U-23 team will com­pete for the Caribbean crown.”

‘How­ev­er, to ful­ly re­alise the po­ten­tial of our ath­letes and pro­vide them with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete at the high­est lev­els, we es­ti­mate that close to $1.5 mil­lion is need­ed,’ stat­ed Stew­art.


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