{"id":1899,"date":"2010-10-21T12:45:39","date_gmt":"2010-10-21T20:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2010-10-21T12:45:39","modified_gmt":"2010-10-21T20:45:39","slug":"greg-vernovage-wraps-up-with-team-usa-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/21\/img-news\/greg-vernovage-wraps-up-with-team-usa-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg Vernovage Wraps Up With Team USA in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Team USA preparing for practice<\/p><\/div>\n

October 21, 2010<\/p>\n

IMG Guide Greg Vernovage sent us this update on his travels with the USA Men’s National Volleyball Team in Italy:<\/em><\/p>\n

“It was an action packed month of travel and competition for me.\u00c2\u00a0 I had the opportunity to travel to Italy with the USA Men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s National Volleyball Team<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Coaching some of the Beijing Gold Medalists as well as some up and coming great athletes of the US was a great honor.\u00c2\u00a0 I met the team at their training facility in Anaheim.\u00c2\u00a0 After practicing in the US for couple weeks we set off for the World Championships in Italy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Cathedral in Gela<\/p><\/div>\n

We started in Sicily in a city named Gela.\u00c2\u00a0 Our goal here was to adapt our bodies to the time change as well as prepare for the first round of tournament pool play.\u00c2\u00a0 In our pool was Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina.\u00c2\u00a0 It is one thing to be from The United States of America and have people get fired up to play against you, but combine that with the fact that we are the reigning Olympic Champions and you can be assured that you are going to get everything the opponent has and then some.<\/p>\n

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Strait of Messina<\/p><\/div>\n

We won the first pool in Reggio Calabria, a beautiful city in southern Italy overlooking the Strait of Messina.\u00c2\u00a0 Our next round of pool play included the Czech Republic and Cameroon.\u00c2\u00a0 The Czech Republic cleaned our clock but we got the better of Cameroon.\u00c2\u00a0 For my Czech climbing friends out there, Yes, you beat us and yes, I may be a better guide than coach of volleyball now, but thanks for the emails!<\/p>\n

We came in Second in that pool which sent us to Rome.\u00c2\u00a0 I always wanted to see the Coliseum.\u00c2\u00a0 That place is absolutely enormous.\u00c2\u00a0 In this round we played against France and won, if we beat Italy, the host country, we advance to the final four, lose and the best we can get is 5th<\/sup>.\u00c2\u00a0 We lost and had to go to yet another city, Medona.\u00c2\u00a0 A great thing to watch as far as patriotism goes occurred before the match against Italy.\u00c2\u00a0 As per \u00e2\u20ac\u0153International Rules\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, each country has their Anthem played for 45 seconds.\u00c2\u00a0 This keeps an even playing field.\u00c2\u00a0 For the match against Italy, the 12,000 plus fans in the arena would not hear of anything short of their full anthem.\u00c2\u00a0 When the Italian Anthem stopped, the crowd sang on.\u00c2\u00a0 Sing they did, and most impressively I might add.\u00c2\u00a0 An experience I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll remember for a long time.<\/p>\n

We beat Germany and lost to Russia to come in 6th<\/sup> at the 2010 World Championships.\u00c2\u00a0 A decent finish, but if you know me, not first place is what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll remember.\u00c2\u00a0 We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got time to get better before the London 2012 Games.\u00c2\u00a0 The Team will be ready and hungry as ever.”<\/p>\n

Greg Vernovage<\/p>\n

Greg will be back on board with IMG this winter with trips to Ecuador, Vinson, and Kilimanjaro. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 21, 2010 IMG Guide Greg Vernovage sent us this update on his travels with the USA Men’s National Volleyball Team in Italy: “It was an action packed month of travel and competition for me.\u00c2\u00a0 I had the opportunity to travel to Italy with the USA Men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s National Volleyball Team.\u00c2\u00a0 Coaching some of the Beijing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-img-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1942,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions\/1942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}