Marta Kamelia Lewinsky | Photo: https://www.facebook.com/Volejbolskola/
This year, the Latvian women’s volleyball team can successfully compete with the Estonian national team in test matches, as well as with the strongest European Silver League teams, Marta Kamelia Levinska, the leader of the attack of the Latvian national team, said in a conversation with LETA.
The first test match with the Estonian women will be played on Friday in Tallinn, and they will meet again on Saturday. A year ago, in Estonia, Latvians recognized the superiority of the neighboring country’s national team with 1-3 and 2-3, later the Estonian national team celebrated its victory in the European Silver League.
“I think there will be quite similar games. We also played against them last year. In the Silver League, we didn’t play well against them, but the opponents are familiar, we have played against each other a lot, and I think it will be a fierce battle,” says the diagonal player of the Latvian national team in an optimistic mood.
It is now the third week of training, and a large part of the team members have been in the lineup since the beginning of training. “The girls have improved a lot compared to last year. It keeps getting better and better. This year, too, we have attracted a couple of good young players,” Levinska says. “The girls have played abroad, gained good experience, and you can see it on the field as well. We are definitely better than last year.”
The European Silver League will start in a week. Volleyball players from ten countries will play in the European Silver League. The order of play in the league has been changed this year, with each of the teams meeting a team from another country in each game according to the ranking table, but not all of them.
For women, the competition in the Silver League will take place over four weekends in a row, starting on May 16 and ending on June 9. The Latvian national team will play matches in the first three weekends. From May 24 to 26, the competition will take place in Riga, in the “Rimi” Olympic Center, when Latvia will meet Georgia, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. The winner of the Silver League will be determined in two final games on the fields of both teams.
In 2023, the Latvian women’s team in the European Silver League took third place in the group with two wins in six games, without qualifying for the final four matches. “Big hopes. In general, it is realistic to win many games,” says Lewinska. “Of course, the favorites are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal, Montenegro, Hungary, but all the others, I think, we can win and even fight with the leaders. I hope that the beginning of the Silver League in the matches in Iceland will be good.”
In the first outing in Iceland, Latvia has to meet Iceland on May 17 and Hungary on May 18. This was the player’s first season in professional volleyball. She spent the first part of the season from August to December with the Arizona State University (ASU) team, which reached the round of 16 of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) playoff tournament, losing there to the best team in the region, Stanford University, but she signed her first professional contract with the Turkish team Ankara at the turn of the year. PTT.
“We had our best season at the NCAA Championship. It was a productive year for me personally, and the team reached a historic achievement. It was a great end to my career and the whole adventure in America,” says the volleyball player. “We faced a very good team in the round of 16, but overall our team showed a lot of growth compared to the year before.”
Lewinska, who has played for ASU since 2020, was included in the NCAA’s first symbolic selection last season, and was also the team’s leading volleyball player in the NCAA Championship. At the beginning of January, she went to Turkey, where she did not play as much as in the United States, often coming to the court only for a change. “It was also a good experience because I played against the best clubs and players in the world. All in all, a very rich season for growth, and I learned a lot,” states the player.
She says that the team in Turkey was good, but there were too many foreign women in the team. “Only three could go on the field, but there were five of us. And then I had to compete not only with my position, but also with other positions on the court, because the number of foreign women was limited,” explains Levinska.
She admits that it was not fun and it was difficult, but overall it was a good experience. In Turkey, Levinska, who usually played a lot in teams, should have been able to prove herself as effectively as possible in the moments when it was expected of her, by putting a player on the field. “I learned to play against a good block, I played against many of the best volleyball players in the world, and I realized that they too are only human and make mistakes, but I’m not that far from that level,” the volleyball player says about Turkey’s achievements.
The adult team also includes several players from the Latvian U22 national team, who after the European Silver League will participate in the final tournament of the European U22 Championship in Italy, and in August the first European Championship qualifying matches for the adult national teams will take place. This time, the selection will take place over two years, with women competing in the second half of August 2024 and in the summer of 2025.
