The 2017-2018 CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup acted 
as the qualification process for the European spots to the 2018 Youth Olympic Games and featured the participation of a total of 42 European National Federations (38 in the boy’s competition and 41 in the girl’s).
Scotland was represented for the first time in both genders against Germany, Norway, England and Cyprus. England and Cyprus had recently competed in the Bahamas at the Youth Commonwealth Games, with the boys reaching the finals, while Germany and Norway remain as always traditional super powers on the world stage of beach volleyball.
Scotland had been training hard since the end of March and selections were made on July 3rd after the tournament in St Andrews. The selected pairings were Harris Ritchie (16) from South Queensferry and Yusef Butt (15) from Aberdeen and for the girls Emma Waldie (16) from South Queensferry and Hannah Paisley (16) from Ayr. It is worth noting that the Scottish boys’ team was the youngest in the competition.
With the help of the Cyprus Volleyball Federation, and especially Vangelis Koutouleas and Yannis Petroudis, we were able to train alongside the Cyprus beach volleyball team for both junior men and women. Furthermore Linos Petrides managed to secure the Scottish team a very efficient deal at a hotel very close to, and with access to, the training venue. People at the hotel were polite and hospitable and it was nice to see that on our arrival on Sunday midnight that they had some food reserved for the teams.
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