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Fans of Bonaire support Volleyball event 

KRALENDIJK, Bonaire, June  – Gisette Emer is expecting and hoping that the just-concluded CAZOVA (Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association) Under-23 Women’s Championship in Bonaire will revive the sport in the tiny Caribbean island.

The vice-president of the Bonaire Volleyball Association (BoVoBo) stated that “volleyball was one of the biggest sport here for many years”, but the interest had dropped drastically after the passing of the former president of the federation Jorge Nicholas in 2012.

Last weekend’s tournament was truly a first as in addition to being the inaugural edition, there had never even been an international competition in Bonaire before.

Emer pointed out that they took up the challenge “as late as October” when original host United States Virgin Islands (USVI) withdrew when a hurricane hit the country.

“It has been little or no sleep since January” as she and a small team – of about eight officials from the federation and 15 or so volunteers – worked virtually around the clock to get the tournament off the ground.

The dream not only became a reality it was a resounding success and Emer, her team and the fans who came out to support, were praised during the closing ceremony by CAZOVA president Mushtaque Mohammed on Sunday night. Mohammed was very complimentary of the BoVoBo attempt to host this event and congratulated them for the successful hosting of the 1st CAZOVA U23 women event.

The main reason Emer and her team undertook the project was “to get kids to start playing volleyball again” and interest has grown considerably in the sport since the announcement that the Bonaire had agreed to host.

She pointed out that some of their players in the tournament were part of this group as they were at beginner level less than a year ago.

Bonaire failed to win a set and ended up at the rear, but Emer was still very proud as, “they were the youngest bunch” with no one on the team even as old as age 18.

She had hoped that the three-day tournament would bring out the fans and “was more very pleased” with the response.

Emer looks at this as just the start and will be working with her team for the sport to as popular in the island as it was when she played it as a youth three decades ago.

Suriname won all four matches for gold, while Curacao and USVI earned the silver and bronze medals, respectively. Aruba was the other team in the straight round-robin tournament.