For the Latvian women’s volleyball team, the fights in the ECC selection tournament have been postponed from January to May

The talks between the participants of the four European volleyball championship qualifying tournaments and the representatives of the European Volleyball Confederation (CEV) have ended with the decision to transfer the competition to Group F, which also includes Inguna Minus-trained Latvian women’s team, from the first half of January to the beginning of May.

Initially, the selection tournaments in Latvia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were scheduled for the second and third weekends of January 2021. In all four group members, including the Czech Republic and Slovenia, negotiations with the CEV chose the postponement of games as the best option. The same decision was taken by the Member States of women’s qualification groups B, C, D and E and men’s qualification groups A, E, F and G, but the remaining groups, women group A and men group B and C, plan to play in January.

“Latvia is currently in a state of emergency, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina the situation with Covid-19 is not shining, there are problems with direct flights and teams have problems assembling the strongest line-ups, we probably would not be able to help US students,” says Latvia about the reasons for postponing the competition. National Team Coordinator Arturs Vitkovskis. He says that there was another option – to hold competitions in one place – in Latvia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, but this time the security aspect was the most important, hoping that the situation will improve in May.

So far, the organizers of the race have remained the same as in January. The first round of four national team games is planned to take place in Latvia, the second – in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Thinking about the qualifying tournament in May, until the end of the state of emergency in Latvia, national team candidates are offered training opportunities under the leadership of Latvian national team coach Inguna Minus, so that players who currently cannot train in clubs due to Covid-19 restrictions can prepare for the selection competition.

The final tournament is scheduled for August and September 2021 in Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania. Four home team teams and the top eight teams from previous European championships have already secured a place among the top 24 teams in Europe in Turkey, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Belgium and Azerbaijan. The remaining 12 places in the final tournament will be taken by the winners of six qualification groups and the second place winners.