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. |