Shannon Winzer takes charge of Canadian Women
OTTAWA, Canada, December 9, 2020 – The Canadian women’s national
team will enter 2021 guided by former assistant coach Shannon
Winzer, who was selected to be the team’s new head coach
following the departure of Tom Black.
Winzer, who was an assistant for both the senior national team
and the NextGen programme, a development initiative created by
the country’s federation, already has experience coaching
internationally as she was the head coach of the Australian
national team between 2016 and 2019.
During that period, the former player took the Volleyroos to the
30th spot in the FIVB World Ranking, their best position in
several years.
“I’m very honoured and extremely excited to be named the next
head coach for team Canada,” Winzer said about the appointment.
“The potential of this current group of athletes, as well as all
the athletes coming up our pathway, was the single biggest
factor in deciding to move back home from Australia to work with
team Canada.”
Winzer will lead an up-and-coming group of players, who
currently rank 18th in the world. They have had promising
results in the last few years, including victories at the 2019
FIVB Volleyball Challenger Cup and the 2017 NORCECA
Championships.
The first big challenge for the new head coach will be to lead
the Canadians in their first-ever FIVB Volleyball Nations League
appearance, in 2021.
“I’m excited about the women’s national team and women’s
volleyball as a whole in Canada,” she added. “In 2021 we will
see our national team compete in the VNL for the first time,
which is huge as we will get to test ourselves week in and week
out against the best teams in the world. Tom has done an
outstanding job with this programme and has laid a solid
foundation upon which we can continue to build on. There is no
doubt that we are moving in the right direction, working towards
great things, which I’m optimistic will lead to future Olympic
qualification.” |