International Veteran Volleyball Association IVVA, whose main face is Olympian Přemysl Kubala, for the first time in its history organized one of its veteran tournaments in classic and beach volleyball in Milan, Italy, which is the city of fashion, but also of volleyball, the local second most popular sport. Last week, with the participation of four hundred lovers of the sport from twenty countries, it was shown that it is "in" to play sports at any age, in the spirit of the Italian healthy lifestyle trend, where locals do not take age as an excuse for playing sports, and on the contrary claim that one has aged because one has not played sports. The proof was the participation of Paolo de Cara, who at 77 years of age showed off his skills on the sand, just like his Slovakian peer Jozef Orgonik, on the hard surface in the hall where volleyball Champions League participant Powervolley MIlano has its facilities. Age categories were announced from 34 years for women and from 40 years for men, the organizers for the first time also tried mixes in beach volleyball, where among others Lucilla Perrotta, two-time Olympic Games participant and European beach volleyball champion, was present.

"Milan was very interested in hosting our tournament here and we decided to try a new destination at the very beginning of the season alongside our traditional autumn event in Mallorca. We had at our disposal the stadium where the Italian national team plays, and for the beach we chose a venue with good quality sand, in short it was felt that Italy is a volleyball country. It attracted, besides our traditional participants, about half of the new players who took advantage of the good accessibility of this attractive place. All of them managed to pick up, besides the sporting experience, other tourism-related experiences, which fulfilled what we all hoped for from Milan, getting to know another sporting destination, including its lifestyle, gastronomy, history, culture and entertainment," said Adam Kubala, Vice President of the organizing association IVVA, who thanked Milan for its exceptional support and warm hospitality, which contributed significantly to the success of the event.

"Even though the sea was missing, it turned out that the atmosphere is mainly created by the participants themselves, who create a strong community and new friendly relationships. Even if they don't give anything away in the matches and sometimes the fights get quite heated, fair play prevails in the end and everything is forgotten during the closing ceremony. You can also see the excellent condition of all participants, because they always have enough strength left for a great party. There they usually make sure that they will see each other again at the next event. That is the Championships in Mallorca again on 7-12 October," recalls Olympian Přemysl Kubala of the upcoming veterans' tournament under the IVVA banner