2006 Volleyball World Championship:

Egypt starts active preparation with full Squad

Cairo, Egypt, September 27-: The Egyptian Men's Volleyball team will start the active preparation to the 2006 Men's Volleyball World Championship when they leave on Thursday September 28 for Poland to participate in a 4 team tournament with Polish clubs to be held 29th September to 1st October followed by a training camp there till 8th of October.

The tournament will be the first for the polish Head Coach of Egypt Grzegorz Rys with the full squad after he participated in the 2006 World League without four main stars due to different injuries. The team captain and the most experienced player Hamdi El Safy started the early preparation with the team in the local camp since two weeks after he played in the last two World League matches. The strong wing spiker Saleh Fathy and the skillful opposite Ahmed Salah started also the team collective training after they passed the physiotherapeutic stage following their shoulder operations since five months, which costed them to lose the World League matches this season. The experienced setter Mohamed Abdel Rahman also appeared in the National squad for the first time this season following his long term injury.

The Head coach Grzgorez Rys selected two players from the Junior team Under 21 who just qualified to 2007 World Championship of this age category following their victory of the African Nations Championship in Morocco last August as he chooses the opposite player Monhamed El Daabosi and the young tall setter Hossam Yousef from that team after their high performance.

Speaking at the teams’ training camp at the Olympic Centre in Cairo Grzegorz Rys said that his main target is to secure a second round vacancy from their group which also includes hosts Japan, Poland, China, Argentina and Puerto Rico. "I'm happy to see my team full for the first time since I started my job and this is very optimistic before the World Championship." He added.

Egypt team will play another tournament in Greece next October including another camp there before going to Thailand on November 7 to enter another camp before going directly to Japan for the prestigious event.