Beach Volleyball is making only its second appearance at the Youth Olympics since its inclusion in Nanjing, China in 2014. The Youth Continental Cup is a qualification route to the Youth Olympics with the first rounds of this ompetition being in 2017.
Scotland is making its first appearance in this competition in Cyprus 5-6 August 2017, which is for players born between 2000 and 2003. The other teams in Scotland’s pool are Germany, Norway, England and Cyprus. There will be both a boys and a girl’s team and selection has been ongoing since the end of March for places in the squad.
The selected teams are:
Boys: Harris Ritchie (Queensferry HS) & Yusef Butt (Aberdeen Grammar School)
Coach: Ioannis Panayiotakis
Reserves: Callum Campbell and Murray Paterson
Girls: Emma Waldie (Queensferry HS) & Hannah Paisley (Belmont Academy)
Coach: Colin Paterson
Reserves: Megan Hall and Rhian Murphy
SVA CEO Margaret Ann Fleming said “This is a fabulous opportunity for our young beach players to begin the process of performance competition on the sand. I would like to thank the CEV for their financial support for this competition to the SVA, the SVA Board and staff and to the volunteering coaching staff of the SVA junior beach programmes, in particular Colin Paterson and Ioannis Panayiotakis. I
wish the best of luck to all those players selected”
With only a month to go, training has been ramped up and the players are looking forward to the competition.
Colin Paterson
SVA Junior Beach programme Head Coach.