Opening of European classification tournament in female volleyball world grand-prix championship took place in Guba

The Minister of Youth, Sport and Tourism of Azerbaijan Abulfaz Garayev and the Vice-President of the European Confederation of volleyball Rita Otts spoke at the opening ceremony, Trend reports. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev also took part in the ceremony.

The competitions will start on 26 July and 8 teams will take part in them: from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Holland, Germany, Turkey, Poland, Russia and Rumania. The “A” sub-group includes the teams from Russia, Poland, Holland and Rumania, and the “B” subgroup –teams from Azerbaijan, Turkey, Bulgaria and Germany. Three out of 8 teams will get the right to take part in the World Grand-Prix-2006 championship to be held in Italy the next year.

The Azerbaijani team will participate for the first time in such kind of competitions and the first game will be against Bulgaria, following the games with Germany and Turkey.