Volleyball - Seychelles’ most successful team sport – where it all began |08 February 2017
Nowadays, as soon as we hear the word ‘sports’, immediately many images begin to flash across our minds, from rackets, to balls, to courts, to wrestling, etc… but where do those sports that we love so much come from? Well, today we are looking at sharing one of them with you.
If we talk about team sports in Seychelles, football obviously comes to mind as the most popular in the country, while basketball will also come to mind. But, it is volleyball that has given our small nation the most reason to shout throughout the years and has been the country’s most successful team sports up till now.
From Arsu and Cascade to Premium Spikers and Beau Vallon recently, these teams have dominated local volleyball, while in the early days, it was Anse Royale, Takamaka and English River who were the dominant forces in Seychelles volleyball.
The game of volleyball, originally called “mintonette,” was invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan after the invention of basketball only four years before. Morgan, a graduate of the Springfield College of the YMCA, USA, designed the game to be a combination of basketball, baseball, tennis, and handball.
The first volleyball net, borrowed from tennis, was only 6’6” high.
The offensive style of setting and spiking was first demonstrated in the Philippines in 1916. Over the years that followed, it became clear that standard rules were needed for tournament play, and thus the USVBA (United States Volleyball Association) was formed in 1928.
The first country outside the United States to adopt volleyball was Canada in 1900. An international federation, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), was founded in 1947, and the first World Championships were held in 1949 for men and 1952 for women. The sport is now popular in Brazil, in Europe (where especially Italy, the Netherlands, and countries from Eastern Europe have been major forces since the late 1980s), in Russia, and in other countries including China and the rest of Asia, as well as in the United States.
The history of Olympic volleyball traces back to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, where volleyball was played as part of an American sports demonstration event. After the foundation of FIVB and some continental confederations, it began to be considered for official inclusion. In 1957, a special tournament was held at the 53rd IOC session in Sofia, Bulgaria to support such request. The competition was a success, and the sport was officially included in the programme for the 1964 Summer Olympics.
Seychelles officially joined the volleyball family in 1982 and as of 2016, the men’s team currently ranks 65th in the world, above Mauritius, Scotland and even England, while the female team are ranked 115th worldwide.
Arsu remain the country’s most successful side, having won the Indian Ocean Club Championship a record 10 times, with their latest triumph coming in 2016, where players such as Jerina Bonne and Marielle Bonne were the pillars of the team.
Other top volleyball players who have made their mark locally include: Jourdan and Norbert Lepathy, Jean Larue, Jockey Jacques, the Bijoux brothers for the men and for the ladies the likes of Thelma Pierre-Louis, Marie-Ange Bouchereau, Marie-Simone Esparon, Marcella Belle, among others.
Volleyball has also produced a number of professional players, such as Marielle Bonne, Nathalie Agnes, Rodney Ah-Kong and Ian Furneau and others who have all had a taste of professional volleyball.
While it may not be Seychelles’ most popular sport, volleyball is very much a big part of our national pride, where the sport has brought us various medals especially at regional level, with the country’s women’s team claiming gold at the 2015 Indian Ocean Island Games held in Reunion.
S.N