Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines have collectively and unanimously expressed their support and called for further cooperation in the development of sitting volleyball in the Southeast Asian region.
During the 11th ASEAN Para Games Solo 2022 in Indonesia, a Coaches’ Workshop was conducted for the participating teams on August 1 at the Royal Surakarta Heritage Hotel.
The workshop was facilitated by Irene Chang, technical delegate for sitting volleyball, with the presence of Sports and Technical Director of the ASEAN Para Sports Federation Stefanie Ang and PVAO referees commissioner Ebrahim Firouzi. The workshop included sharing experiences of the panel, team representatives, International Technical Officials (ITOs) and members of the local organising committee.
The main objective of the workshop was to find out about the status of sitting volleyball in each country and to find the best way to promote the discipline in the region.
Among the shared challenges of the teams are the inadequate funding for sitting volleyball programmes and the lack of players and resources to form a team. Even countries that have sitting volleyball programmes could not further their development due to the lack of competitions in the region.
Amidst these obstacles, there were also positive things that came out of the enthusiasm of the people from each team to participate at the ASEAN Para Games.
“Thailand has good support from the government, and we were also supported by commercial sponsors. With that support, we were able to get foreign coaches that helped develop the team in competitions in Asia,” assistant coach Sakkarat Sri-iam said.
“The Philippines was able to form a sitting volleyball team because of the 2019 ASEAN Para Games, but unfortunately that was cancelled due to the pandemic. We were able to continue the programme through virtual training and our NPC supported us to participate in this edition,” coach Rosemarie Prochina said.
Indonesia, which won the women’s gold medal this year, recounted that their programme started when Solo hosted the Games for the first time in 2011.
“If not for the 2011 ASEAN Para Games here in Solo, Indonesia would not have teams. The 2011 Games started it all for us, including the women’s team. We are grateful that we can compete here again,” coach Andri Asrul Setiyawan said.
Firouzi shared that talent identification and training, coaching and management, refereeing education and developing a…
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