Del Bianco to don maple leaf

Nick Del Bianco, see in action above, will represent Team Canada for the second consecutive year.
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Spartans to don maple leaf

By Pieter Uni - Langley Times
Published: July 09, 2010 6:00 AM
For the second straight year, Nick Del Bianco will represent Team Canada at the 19U Beach World Championships.

The Langley beach volleyball player will join Ontario’s Garrett May in Espinho, Portugal as a part of Canada’s top men’s team after Volleyball Canada announced the men and women’s team selections.

For the former Fleetwood Park Secondary volleyball standout, representing his country for a second time in a humbling honour.

“It is an amazing experience, it is unlike any other,” said Del Bianco, who has been playing beach volleyball for the past three years. “We are going to try to win it all, I think our chances are really good as long as we train hard.”

Del Bianco, who will don a Trinity Western Spartans volley uniform this fall, made Team Canada following a grueling week-long tryout in the middle of May.

“I was identified as the top blocker and was put on a team with the best defender in the country to make up the top team,” he said. “I thought I did pretty well (during the tryouts) but when I found out that I had made the team a few weeks later, I was ecstatic.”

The Langley product joined teammate May earlier this week in Slave Lake, Alberta, where the two will train and compete in a small tournament in hopes of working out any kinks in their game before heading to beaches of Espinho.

“This is a developmental tournament,” said Del Bianco. “We want to win, but the most important thing is to get better as a team and to understand each other in order to be ready for the World Championships.”

Del Bianco, who finished ninth in Turkey after being eliminated by Russia, said he has gained valuable insight from last year’s early exit from the tournament.

“We were not happy with result, in our last game we didn’t play they way we should have,” he said. “But our experiences there will make us better this time. We have to believe we can do it, if you believe you can do something, I think it is a lot easier to accomplish your goal."

Del Bianco said the competition he and May will face will be difficult, but said they are ready to meet the challenge.

“Germany and Russia are pretty strong and I would like to beat Russia because they eliminated us last year,” he said. “I think we will be set to go, we were both ranked in the top 10 last year at the tournament and I don’t think there will be anybody ranked that high this year ahead of us.”

Del Bianco and May will be joined in Portugal by the pair of Jennifer Cross and Melissa Humana-Paredes, who will represent Canada’s chances in the women’s division. The foursome will be in Espinho from July 28 to Aug. 1 as a part of the 19U Beach World Championships.