Seven Olympic referees participate in second seminar at FIVB Fortaleza Open

Lausanne, Switzerland, May 5, 2016 – With the first whistle for the beach volleyball competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games three months away, seven of the 16 Olympic beach volleyball referees participated in the second half of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Referee Preparation Seminar at last week’s FIVB Fortaleza Open in Brazil.  The first of its kind program is being organized by the the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), the international sanctioning body for both the Olympic disciplines of Volleyball and Beach Volleyball. With three key FIVB officials making brief presentations, the featured speaker again was Dr. Mattia Piffaretti, noted sports psychologist from Switzerland. The first part of the seminar was held in March with all 16 referees selected by the FIVB to work the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Aug. 6-18), attending the first half of the major clinic at the Center for Development of Volleyball Brazil in Saquarema. All 16 referees were also in the area to work the FIVB Rio Grand Slam held in the week following the clinic.2016 OLYMPIC REFEREESThe seven 2016 FIVB Olympic referees attending the clinic and working the FIVB Fortaleza Open were Daniel Apol (United States), Mário Ferro (Brazil), Lucie Guillemette (Canada), Elzir Martins de Oliveira (Brazil), Carlos L. Rivera Rodriguez (Puerto Rico), Juan Carlos Saavedra (Columbia), Osvaldo Sumavil (Argentina). The other 2016 FIVB Olympic referees who will be part of the second half of the seminar at the Swatch FIVB Hamburg Major Series event in Germany (June 7-12) are Giovanni Bake (South Africa), Djamal Bergheul (Algeria), Davide Crescentini (Italy), José Maria Padron (Spain), Charalampos Papadogoulas (Greece), Kritsada Panaseri (Thailand), Jonas Personeni (Switzerland), Roman Pristovakin (Russia) and Lijun Wang (China). Apol (London 2012), Padron (London 2012), Personeni (Beijing 2008 and London 2012) and Sumavil (London 2012) have previous Olympic experience. THE VISION The Rio 2016 Olympic Games Referee Preparation Seminar is part of the vision by FIVB President Dr. Ary S. Graça F° to continue to develop and improve all aspects of the sport of volleyball and beach volleyball. Last year at this time, President Graça launched an e-learning platform aimed at an online hub to increase collaboration between referees around the world and create new links between different members of the volleyball and beach volleyball family. WELCOME BY FIVB OFFICIALSThe seven FIVB Olympic beach volleyball referees were welcomed by André Meyer, the FIVB’s second Executive Vice-President and chairman of the refereeing commission, José Casanova, the FIVB Referee Commissioner and FIVB medical commission member Dr. Bruno Fonseca. Meyer stressed the importance of these clinics for the improvement of refereeing. “Our goal is to always to improve all elements of volleyball and beach volleyball,” said Meyer. “We are convincing our referees of the importance of the new technology being introduced into our sport. Our primary goal is to help improve the quality of our refereeing in our many federations and we are obliged to help prepare our referees even more than ever before.”Meyer also added, “So far from our point of view these clinics have been very successful. We are now seeing what progress these referees have made since Rio. We also have a variety of technology systems designed to enhance the quality of the matches and tournaments and this development impacts referees significantly. The new technology is designed to help them. We are doing similar sessions for volleyball as well as we move forward with our goal of …

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