The Russian women’s volleyball championship has started

The start of the Russian volleyball championship among women’s teams will most likely result in a very hot battle for gold between three clubs – last year’s finalists Dynamo Moscow and Lokomotiv Kaliningrad, as well as Dynamo Kazan, led by the famous coach Zoran Terzic.

The Russian women’s volleyball championship opened on Thursday with a match in which Lokomotiv Kaliningrad beat the strong Ekaterinburg Uralochka in three sets, not allowing it to even get close to the 20-point mark in any of the games. The result of this match only confirmed the assumptions that its winners must be considered favorites in the upcoming season.

Lokomotiv won the championship gold twice in a row, in 2021 and 2022, and in the previous tournament lost to Dynamo Moscow in the final. To regain the award, the Kaliningrad club carried out a grandiose redraw of its roster, which seems to have only made it stronger.

There are half a dozen signings, and newcomers such as the diagonal Ebrard Karakurt, who recently won a Nations League gold medal with Turkey, look like a guarantee of a successful medal hunt.

“Lokomotiv” must definitely compete with the capital’s “Dynamo”, which also shook up the application, albeit not on such a scale. It has already shown its power in the important pre-season tournament, the Cup of the 100th Anniversary of Volleyball, defeating Leningradka in the final match a week ago.

Recently, before the start of the Russian Championship, two clubs, as a rule, stood out. The current one seems to be an exception to the rule, because one cannot help but pay attention to Dynamo Ak Bars from Kazan. It was headed by the famous Serbian specialist Zoran Terzic, who worked as the coach of the Russian national team, suspended from international competitions, and who was always extremely effective at the club level. The selection of players at his disposal looks extremely bright. The team, for example, now has some great foreign players like the leader of the Italian national team, Elena Pietrini.

Alexey Dospehov