Volleyball: Ground zero of European University sport

Volleyball: Ground zero of  European University sport

Number of sports included in European Universities Championships and European Universities Games every year grows larger and in 2019 we will have record number of 23 sports. But, volleyball has a very special place in history of University sport because very first European Universities Championship organized by EUSA.

In the beginning of 21st century idea of organizing European Universities Sports events was at the beginning and in the year 2000 it was agreed that first two championships would be volleyball and basketball. It was decided that basketball would be organized in Aveiro, Portugal and start on september 27th, and volleyball 8 days before in Uzice, Serbia.

Total of 14 teams, 6 men and 8 women participated and University of Uzice in women and University of Novi Sad in men competition are writen as first European Universities Champions in history of EUSA. After that, total of 17 European Universities Volleyball events were held, with total of 360 teams from more than 30 countries.

Universities with most appearances so far come from Germany and Portugal. Both Technical University of Munich (men) and University of Minho (women) were 9 times part of European Universities Championships. We spoke with Sebastian Wenninger from Munich and Joao Peixe from Minho about their success.

„Social services from University give a questionnaire to all new students (about sports habits, among other things) which students answer when they sign in. There we detect volleyball players, both casual and club affiliated, and invite them to an open practice, during which, we make a selection of the best 20 or so.“ – said Joao about University of Minho, and Sebastian explains that situation in Germany is completely different.

„Volleyball scene here in Germany revolves around the clubs, and that’s also where we recruit our players. However, there is no real “recruitment process”. We all know each other from playing with or against each other in our respective clubs for the last years (some even from the youth teams). We have the luxury in Munich to house 1 team in the 1st  german league, 2 teams in the 2nd  german league, and 3 teams in the 3rd german league, so we have a good pool of players available.“

Although they practice only before major competition both teams can serve as role models to others who want to follow the path of success. Those two universities along with all others that come and represent university sport and dual career are winners and we cannot wait to see them in Coimbra and future European Universities events.