VOLLEYBALL: It has become noticeable over the past few days that, apart from the 1,200-strong Team USA, not many delegations have friends and family members along with them for support.
It's a long and expensive way to come from countries like Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal and the island of Reunion.
However, at ALSAA out near Dublin Airport, where the seeding rounds of the men's volleyball were taking place yesterday, there were vocal and partisan supporters aplenty.
Local primary schools have been sending classes to these volleyball matches all week, with each class supporting a particular team. Yesterday morning, scores of very young pupils from the Holy Family National School in Swords and Our Lady Immaculate National school in Darndale roared their heads off for Finland, the Czech Republic, Puerto Rica, Jamaica, Russia and Britain. Some of them even had disposable cameras to record the action.
They flapped home-made banners which said 'Welcome to Ireland' in wonky crayon letters, bolted out of their seats like greyhounds from traps to give high fives to athletes at the sidelines when they finished competing, and thrust scraps of paper and copybooks at them for autographs. They left the hall most reluctantly, lured away only by their teachers' promises of lunch.
The Russian volleyball team in particular were glad of support, since none of them had any of their own supporters from home. The Russians are the youngest competitors in men's volleyball, with an age-range of 15-21.
And, astonishingly, until they all arrived in Moscow on June 6th from their home towns, they had never competed together as a volleyball team. They had competed in Russian Special Olympics volleyball events, but with different team members. The 10 players selected to come to Ireland had only nine days of training together as a team in Moscow with coach Marat Salimov and trainer Vladimir Solovev.
In the morning, the Russians played Great Britain. Britain were kitted out in their brand-new strip, which had been provided overnight by the employers of one of the ALSAA volunteers (AIB Corporate Banking) when the team's original strip literally got lost in the laundry on Sunday.
Yesterday afternoon, the British ambassador, Stewart Eldon, came out to ALSAA to formally present the gear to the team. The Britons didn't have much opportunity to admire their new kit, however: the Russians kept them scampering round the court, beating them on points, first by 25-15 and then a whopping 25-3.
In their afternoon match, the Russians repeated their success by beating the strongly-rated Finns by 25-21 and 25-14. The Russians may only have been training together as a team for less than a month, but they have emerged as favourites for the gold medals at the weekend finals.
Despite awaiting the results of her Russian final exams from Trinity later that very day, volunteer Siobhan McNamara was sticking with her assigned duties, and acted as translator for the team after their match with a remarkable lack of nerves. Three of the team are from the Krasnoyarsk region of Russian, in Siberia. The other seven, as well as coach Marat Salimov, are from Ekaterinburg, close to the Ural Mountains.
Special Olympics has been happening at a low-key level in Russia for 11 years, but it's only recently that it has become more widespread there. "It was important for us to come here so that we can go home and tell everyone how good Special Olympics are and get more people involved," stresses coach Salimov, who works in a organisation for children with disabilities back in the city of Minusinsk. "This team all come from very different types of families and playing together in Ireland is a chance for them to become personally more confident and learn how to communicate with people."
Team captain Andrey Antsipirovich (20), Alexander Rublev (16) and Eugeny Tambovtsev (18) have all been playing volleyball for two years. "But we train indoors," Salimov laughs. "You can play volleyball on the beach in California, but not in Russia!" "Where I live in Siberia, it is minus 50 in winter," explains Antsipirovich.
The Russians have no false modesty: they simply say they want to try and win. Earlier, during the match with Britain, after every point they scored, they came together in a brief huddle to clasp hands and shout a valedictory "Rossia!"
"Everyone in the team has to support each other," Antsipirovich says. This is particularly important when you've only been a team for three weeks.
