'Russia can win Olympic volleyball'

Moscow - Russian women’s volleyball team is still good enough to win the 2012 Olympic Games, said national team player Natalia Obmochaeva.

“We still need to have a good training camp, prepare, tighten up some parts of our game, and with this squad we can win,” Obmochaeva said.

Russians, who are the reigning world champions, won the Olympic qualification tournament Sunday in Tokyo after a clean sweep of wins in seven matches, securing one of the four remaining tickets to London.

Russia competed in Tokyo without spiker Tatiana Kosheleva and former European player of the year Lioubov Sokolova, both of whom are suffering from injury problems.

Obmochaeva said the return of Tatiana and Lioubov could prove crucial to Russia’s Olympic chances.

“They’re the leaders of the team. But nevertheless we got the result, won, and we’ll see how things progress. If we have to, we’ll play without them too, but I would definitely like them to come,” said Obmochaeva, who was a part of the team that won the world championship in 2010.

Obmochaeva was known as Natalia Goncharova, before marrying Russian men’s volleyball international Alexei Obmochaev in 2012.

–IANS/Ria Novosti

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