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MIAMI, Florida, June 25, 2009.- The coaches
participating in the Eighth Women’s Pan American
Cup stated its objectives and goals one day away
of start of the competition where four teams
will book tickets to the 2010 FIVB World Grand
Prix.
Some of them have their teams battling in the
qualification process toward next year’s World
Championships, while others are beginning to
prepare their sides in the early stages of the
new Olympic cycle.
Here you have some excerpts of their statements:
Samuel Cibrian (Mexico)
“The Mexican Team is very happy to be here in
Miami. Our perspective is to qualify for the
second round. We understand the level is very
high at this tournament, and our group is very
strong with United States and Puerto Rico. We
expect to do our best. We have a young team with
some older players. Our plan is preparing for
next year’s FIVB World Championship, and this
competition will be very useful to us.”
Julio Dominguez (Guatemala)
“The group of players we have here in Miami is
very young as it is a development team. We are
looking for competition experience to be able to
compete within the Central America region,
especially in the youth category as many of our
players are in this age group. In our group,
Costa Rica will be our main competition within
the region. This is the most important match for
us. We think USA is the team to be beaten in
this tournament by everyone.”
Hugh McCutcheon (United States)
“We are very happy to be playing in the United
States to start the season. It is always great
to play here in front of the USA fans. At the
start of the quadrennial, we are focusing on our
side of the net. We understand that there are a
lot of good teams here. However, our focus will
be on USA and the systems we want to implement
over the next four years.”
Kim Choel Yong (Peru)
“We have come prepared to be in the
quarterfinals. After that, we will evaluate the
other teams and start the new stage of the
tournament. In order to achieve this, we need to
beat Canada and USA. We don’t want to overlook
any opponent as Mexico is very good also.”
Braulio Godinez (Costa Rica)
“Our main goal is to get ready for the next
event in Orlando, the FIVB World Championship
Qualification Tournament. Our team is mixed with
a group of experienced players and new players.
We expect USA and Puerto Rico to be strong in
our group, with Brazil and Dominican Republic
being the top contenders in Group B.”
Carlos Cardona (Puerto Rico)
“For our sport goal, we expect to reach the
semifinals. As our tournament objectives, this
is a new team with a new system to verify our
job. We don’t know all the teams very well, but
USA and Puerto Rico is supposed to be a good
challenge in our group.”
Nicholson Drakes (Trinidad & Tobago)
“Our team is using the tournament to grow to the
higher level and we expect to improve in our
standing. I think this will be a very unique
opportunity to gain experience competing against
stronger opposition. The exposure of our players
to this competition also will be helpful for our
hopes of qualifying to the World Championship
during the playoff round next month.”
Marcos Kwiek (Dominican Republic)
“The Dominican Republic arrives to this Pan
American Cup as defending champions and it will
be a pleasure to play against the two teams that
played the finals in last year’s Olympics at
Beijing. We will be looking to finish first
again but above all things it will be a joy to
be competing at this level.”
Horacio Bastit (Argentina)
“We continue to renovate our team despite the
third place we accomplished last year in Mexico.
We need to keep that process of renovation. Our
objective here: This is a competition before the
qualification to the World Championship so we
need to prepare the team for the goal to get the
ticket to Japan.”
Roberto Guimaraes (Brazil)
“For us it is very important to take part in the
Pan American Cup because we are at the beginning
of a new Olympic cycle. The teams are here to
know each other better. For this young Brazilian
team it is important to compete against such
strong teams playing in this cup.”
Arnd Ludwig (Canada)
“I am very excited because it is my first
international competition coaching Team Canada.
I have been working with the team for the last
six weeks. We just played three friendly matches
against Peru and hope the girls can show on
court what they show in practice.” |
