GSSE Liechtenstein: 4th day of competition - semi-finals

Unfortunately, today was a bad day for Anne and Norma, and Cyprus was too strong to be beaten in the semi-final. After a successful first set of the luxemburgish team (21-15) the second one was lost rather clearly 13-21 and the two teams had to play a tie-break. In this last set, Cyprus continued to score and it seemed that they had successfully adjusted their play after the first set, to benefit from the weak points of their opponent. Final result of the tiebreak was therefore 7-15 for Cyprus. So perhaps, the better tactic decided the game, but this is hard to say without more detailed informations from the players of both teams. (Results)

This evening, at their hotelroom, Anne and Norma have the difficult exercice, as always in this kind of very short tournament to forget the defeat and to focus on the 3rd-place-game that will take place tomorrow, in order to try to bring a bronze-medal back to Luxembourg.

Keep on fighting... yes, you can....

GSSE Liechtenstein: 3rd day of competition

As expected was the last pool game against Andorra the easiest one for the luxemburgish team, at least concerning the score. Anne and Norma won clearly 21-8 and 21-7 and finish first of their pool with 3 games won out of three.

As there was no other surprise in pool A, Cyprus finish second and will therefore be our team's opponent for the semi-final tomorrow at 18:00.

Having a look at the won-lost-point-ratio of the two pools, it appears that pool B seems stronger with Anne and Norma having a ratio of 1.675 and the second team Malta 1.240. In pool A the first team Liechtenstein appears a ratio of 1.200 and Cyprus (because of their first game loss) only 1.112. On the paper, the luxemburgish team could eventually be considered as favourite, but the real truth on the court may be very different tomorrow. But knowing Norma, she will be totally motivated to take revenge, in a sporty way, on the Cyprus team, after the incident in Limassol, two years ago.

Complete results of the pool games

Go for the final, Anne and Norma - we believe in you....

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Presentation of the GSSE 2013 in Luxembourg

Yesterday was also the almost now traditional press conference organised by the COSL. As the next GSSE in 2013 will be held in Luxembourg, the most important and attended point of the agenda was surely the presentation of the games in Luxembourg. If a lot of details are not known for the moment, the COSL could nevertheless present a framework of the next edition with the sports and the locations that will mainly be in Luxembourg City.

After some discussions about some locations in the south of the country, it finally appears that the objective to have games with very short distances between the locations, has overcome the more political views.

Very good news also for beachvolleyball, because if some rumours appeared that beachvolleyball would not be part of the 2013 games, finally the discipline has been confirmed with the plan to construct a beachvolleyball-arena for the games near the Coque on Kirchberg. The GSSE 2013 without beachvolleyball would have been a huge step backwards for our sport.

For more detailed informations, see the articles in tageblatt or Luxemburger Wort.

GSSE Liechtenstein: 2nd day of competition

Today, the luxemburgish team had to compete against Malta, a team not too strong to be beaten in theory. But if the first set was won clearly 21-14 by Anne and Norma, the second set was much more difficult and the girls were struggling as they were led by 6 points on the score. So nervousness was beginning to install itself in the heads of Anne and Norma what made it even more difficult to win the sideouts in order to close the gap. But after 3 successfully defended set points, the luxemburgish team closed finally the second set, and the game, on a score of 24-22. A little bit unexpected, the team from malta appeared to be stronger than Monaco.

Detailed results

After two days of competition against the stronger teams of their pool, our beach-team is on its way to the semi-finals. The game tomorrow against Andorra should be the easiest one, but Anne and Norma have to stay focussed.

Considering the results of the other pool, normally, if everything goes right tomorrow, Anne and Norma should meet Cyprus already in the semi-final, as Cyprus lots its first game against Liechtenstein.

Good luck for tomorrow to our beachvolley team.