Cubans Leon and Juantorena receive fans support

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, January 18, 2013 – Cuban wing-spikers Wilfredo Leon and Osmany Juantorena both remain in contention for the 2012 Globe Awards, a contest organized by volleyball.it, a popular website based in Modena, Italy.

The quarterfinals-round of electronic voting by fans from all over the world closes on Friday 18 at 23:59 European Central Time.

Leon is paired against Poland’s Bartosz Kuret while Juantorena faces Italy’s Simone Parodi. In the first round Leon was favored 80-20 over Russia’s Tharas Kthey while Juantorena easily won 75-25 against France’s Earvin Ngapeth.

Several players from USA were eliminated in the first round as outside-hitter Matt Anderson lost 58-42 to Kuret, setter Donald Suxho was outdistanced 82-18 by Brazil’s Bruno Rezende, opposite Clayton Stanley lost 74-26 against Russia’s Maxim Mikhaylov, libero Richard Lambourne was defeated 75-25 by Italy’s Andrea Bari and middle blocker David Lee was edged by Russia’s Viktor Yosifov 54-46.

Also eliminated were Cuba’s Roberlandy Simon, Henry Bell and Keibir Gutierrez.

The middle blocker Simon lost to Serbia’s Marko Podrascanin 62-38, libero Gutierrez lost to Russia’s Alexander Sokolov 67-33 while outside-hitter Bell finished far behind Italy’s Ivan Zaytsev 84-16.

Volleyball.it selected a group of the 16 different best players of the positions of wing-spiker, opposite, middle blocker, setter and libero and first the readers will vote for the players.

Then an enlarged jury of more than 100 volleyball journalists gathered worldwide, will have the leading value to the award of two absolute prizes –one per gender.

The jury will receive a list of all players in both genders and they will vote in a ranking from 1^st to 5^th place, both for men and women. The top vote-getters are to receive the recognition as 2012 Volleyball Globe winners.