Up and down of the German volleyball women

MAn ocean surf in the evening light, the silhouettes of two dancing women on the beach, a ferris wheel shines in the background, plus the spherical sounds of Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes”. Break in the Volleyball Nations League in Rimini. Player Denise Imoudu and diagonal attacker Kimberly Drewniok use the possibilities of breathing deeply for 51 seconds of art in everyday life and let the world participate in their break. “Happiness lives in the smallest of moments,” writes Imoudu on her Instagram account. “You make life so much easier,” comments Drewniok.

For almost four weeks, the two athletes, like the entire German national volleyball team and 15 other international teams, have been living in a corona bubble on the Italian Adriatic. They have to hold out for a few more days. After four out of five game blocks in the long-term tournament have been completed, the athletic interim balance is mediocre from a German point of view.

Of twelve games against the assembled world elite, the German team was able to win just four. Before the final three games from Friday to Sunday, “the butterflies” rank twelve out of 16 nations. A result according to their world ranking, but they actually wanted to work their way up. “We had ups and downs,” admits Imoudu in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Own performance “quite okay”

After a decent start with two wins against Belgium and Holland in the first week, national coach Felix Koslowski’s team suffered five defeats in a row. Against the world number one China, the Germans awarded four match points, against the weaker teams from Canada and Thailand they lost out. In addition, captain Jennifer Geerties and the second setter Magdalena Gryka were injured and had to leave after the second tournament block. It was only in the fourth phase that the interplay of processes started to work better again, the top team from Brazil faced a 1: 3 parole, and Poland defeated 3: 0.