Kazakhstan's goal is to reach the second round of competition
Verona, Italy, September 21, 2014 – PalaOlimpia officially opened its doors to the players competing at the FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship Italy 2014 in Verona on Sunday and Kazakhstan were the first to feel the court with a training session in the morning.
“The venue is comfortable and the team is feeling well. We have been practising in Italy for a week now, it was good,” captain Korinna Ishimtseva said.
The Kazakh players said their goal is to reach the second round of competition, an achievement that eluded them in the world championship in 2010.
“We played before in the world championship, in Japan, but we lost all our games there. We did fight some to 3-2, and some games were not bad, but eventually we lost all. Here we want to win every game. Our goal is to get to the next level, libero Marina Storozhenko said.
How to do so, for Storozhenko, is a matter of mind.
“We came here with the idea that we want to win every ball. It’s going to be - run for every ball, always concentrate, avoid thinking about anything else, like a gladiator in ancient Rome. We have to fight in our minds. No thinking, only fight, run and win, that’s all,” the libero added.
In her role, Storozhenko said she is not afraid of any particular opponents.
“As a libero I mustn’t be afraid. I am interested in my new experience, on how I can play, how I will receive the serves. I know some teams, we watched how they serve and some are very hard. I’m interested in how I will react.”
Kazakhstan’s coach, Oleksandr Gutor from Ukraine, said the team is ready at physical level and key now will be for them to work at mental level.
“I hope we’ve had a good preparation, this time will be decided only by our psychological preparation, because skills and tactics are in place and the next step now is psychological. I hope my team will show all they can do.”
“We had a lot of talking to prepare for this event. The team needs to understand that this is the world championship and everybody will feel a little different. A team is like a body, and everyone must feel the same. So we do a lot of psychological work together, concentrating on positive rather than negative,” Gutor added.
Kazakhstan’s match against the Netherlands open the tournament in Verona on Tuesday at 10:30.