Australia’s Nathan Roberts chases second Olympic stint

Sydney, Australia, April 25, 2016 – Australian outside spiker Nathan Roberts turned up for a pre-Olympic training camp for the third time in his volleyball career, since joining the training camps in 2004 and 2012.

Roberts’ first time was in 2004, when he was an 18-year-old newcomer, who failed to make the cut for the final team. Eight years later, Roberts made the squad and had his Olympic debut at the London 2012.

This time, Roberts is very much the veteran, but at 30 he is hardly in the old timer’s league. Nonetheless it is a minor miracle Roberts will even be in the running for Rio 2016, as the past couple of years have been unsatisfactory for him.

“Since London, I hurt my knee in 2013 and took a good year and a half to get better, and then I tore my calf, and that took a couple of months to get better, and then I had an issue with my elbow for the past 12 to 15 months,” Roberts said. “So it’s been a roller-coaster that has mainly been at the lower level, but hopefully the elbow feels alright. I still manage it a bit, but the surgery went really well. Hopefully, I will get a good couple of months training in before the qualifiers.”

This week member of the Australian men’s national team started rolling in from points around the globe to the AIS training facility and prepare for some …

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