Volleyball NSW Pushing the boundaries of Elite Athlete Development.

Over the past three months, Volleyball NSW has established its place as an Elite Athlete Development deliverer through the Inaugural VNSW Beach Elite Program.

The VNSW Beach Elite Program is a dedicated performance opportunity with a committed focus on the up-and-coming elite athletes in NSW. This newly established program seeks to:

• Long term physical, technical and mental development for high potential volleyball athletes
• Provide a twice-weekly high-performance training environment
• Set up a priority focus aligned to the green and gold runway for Brisbane 32.

VNSW Head of Pathways, Beach Volleyball Olympian Martin Reader, stated, ‘Phoenix Beach Elite is an important and timely step forward for beach Volleyball in NSW. Although the 2032 Olympics are less than a decade away the opportunity to establish culture, professionalism and performance within our programs starts now. We have amazing athletes coming through and graduating from our Pathway so having a centralised environment in Sydney with one of the best coaches in Australia is huge for NSW. This program started from humble beginnings and I am incredibly excited for its future as we further integrate with the Volleyball Australia pathway and NSWIS as a performance partner.”

“Early-2022, we prioritised investment in a High-Performance Coach to lead and guide our delivery of Indoor and Beach Volleyball athletes and program development. Chris Todd is an asset to VNSW. His experience will enable us to prioritise our approach to athlete development, formalise and professionalise the delivery for our athletes and set up our big-picture strategic approach to Developing the Exceptional Athlete.”

This is an invite only program that is exclusive to athletes currently on or who have been identified by the Volleyball Australia Athlete pathway. To have been nominated to this program athletes must have met the following criteria 

• Have attended or are currently invited to a National Identification and/or Aus Team Selection camp
• Plan to compete out of state at Junior and/or Senior Beach National Tour events
• Currently Training 2+ times per week in a structured environment
• Currently Physical training 1+ times per week

In the first summer of Phoenix Beach Elite, VNSW has invested in 26 athletes who have been training 2-3 times per week as a squad and competing in frequent national competitions. The training sessions provide a high performance training environment for potential international competition. Throughout the summer additional athletes who are currently playing at a collegiate level, or part of the current AVA cohort in Canberra have participated in training while they were home for the Christmas break.

Chris Todd has identified “our priority is to develop future international beach volleyballers and potential Olympian’s. We are working closely with key partners such as NSWIS and the Office of Sport to create a program that will challenge these young athletes to improve and compete at the highest possible level. It is essential that we support them through the critical development years while they are still living at home with their families and studying at school [or university].” The Phoenix Beach Elite program is being established to be a priority for potential high performance athletes across NSW and will seek to foster individual development and team performance long into the future.

After only a few months the program is seeing some great results. We have some really exciting athletes for the future in the squad. They are already achieving great performances on the national tour, state circuit and junior national tour. Jett Rocker-Graham and Killian Donovan won Bronze playing up an age group in Canberra, and we had 3 pairs sweep the U19 division in Brisbane just this weekend (Adax Brienen/Ada Fejes – Gold, Tyson Dagenais/Felix Birke – Silver, Samuel Garvin/Asher Gill – Bronze). 

At Volleyball NSW, we will continue to evolve our offerings, pushing the boundaries of development and seeking to solidify our place in elite athlete development across NSW and Nationally. We look forward to working with our athletes and partners as we progress towards Brisbane 32.