While the voices in the stands may be cheering for the Indian team at the FIVB Under-21 mens volleyball championship in Pune,it will be the boys from Iran who will be turning on the heat. Long-term development and intense scientific training of young volleyball players is the Iranian mantra to develop a strong senior team for the future even as they start as favourites for the 15th edition of the tournament,which will commence on Friday. While the youth team are top-ranked in the world,their senior team lie at a lowly 22nd. Mostafa Karkhaneh,head coach,explains this wide gap is a result of concentrated training of the junior team. We have undertaken focused scientific training of this present set for the past 12 months to develop this team for the future, said the coach. This system seems to be working well for the Iranian team as they have secured podium finishes in the last six Junior Asian Championships including three golds,one silver and two bronze medals. Cautious approach Despite being the top team,they are quick to shrug off their favourites tag as they are following a very cautious approach taking one game at a time. Our initial aim is to cross the group stage, said captain Shaban Mojtaba. Teams echoed Irans sentiment of this tournament being unpredictable the lower-ranked teams expressing their desire to reach the quarter-final round while the higher-ranked ones wanting to concentrate on each game in hand so that they can get past the group stage. Team USA said that they would have a tough run since most of the teams were not able to practice together for very long. Indian coach MH Kumaran declared his team as underdogs and is looking at this tournament as a learning curve. We are not regular qualifiers here so we will take this opportunity to grasp as much as we can, he said.
