Disabled beach volleyball players with sergeants. Dariusz Cegiełka on the team, pupils of St Peter Janiak, head coach, during the planet championships played for the first time in Chongqing, China, did not give a chance to rivals and reached for gold. “We got it! We won the first historical tournament. We are planet champions!” they wrote proudly on social media.
National representation of beach volleyball men from the Polish Union of athletics for Disabled START in Warsaw has been handing out cards in European competitions in this discipline for respective years and taking leading places. In Chinese Chongqing's first volleyball championships, people with disabilities were favored. – We spent 10 days in China, including twice 30 hours erstwhile we were traveling. In 4 days, the contestants played in 7 games and all won – says Fr Piotr Janiak, a soldier of 1st Air Squadron of the 25th Air Cavalry Brigade, who has coached Poland's representation in beach volleyball for people with disabilities for 4 seasons.
In the planet Championship Final in this discipline, the White-Reds defeated the India squad in 2 sets (21:15, 21:7). They did this: sergeant. Dariusz Cegiełka, a soldier severely injured on a mission in Afghanistan (the bullet ripped his left leg apart), Artur Wąsowicz (he has not full developed hand), Rafał Wójtowicz (plays with leg prosthesis) and Filip Gaca (takes the balls with a deformed hand). – The first match was played in hard weather conditions with over 30 degrees of heat and advanced humidity. However, with each game played, we felt better and the fans powerfully encouraged us to play," said the sergeant. Brick.
From the left they stand: Sergeant. Dariusz Cegiełka, St. Peter Janiak and Lieutenant David Luczak.
Volleyball coach Peter Janiak believes the squad has shown its strength. “They have survived mentally, controlled all action and made no mistakes,” the trainer says. As he emphasizes, the prize for the triumph was Mazurek Dąbrowski, who heard, located 12,000 km from Poland. It's our success together. As soldiers of the Polish Army we are arrogant of this accomplishment – they admit in accordance with St. Dawid Łuczak and a sergeant fighter. Darius Brick. Lt. Luczak adds that in his case this success would not have been possible without the support of the superiors – commander of the 9th Łódź Territorial Defence Brigade Colonel Sławomir Miazga and commander of the 91st Light Infantry Battalion in Zgierz Col. Robert Foks. He besides cites a Facebook statistic: a post about the team's gold medal liked 25 1000 users and displayed nearly 1 million 250 1000 people. “The colleagues joked that we became millionaires,” he adds.
Training makes a master
Sergeant. Dariusz Cegiełka, a soldier seconded from the 5th Engineering Regiment to Central Military Sports Team In Poznań, he joined the squad 2 years ago. Before that, he frequently watched on the net Polish representation matches in beach ball. “I love volleyball and my dream was to play with them 1 day,” she admits. In 2022 he contacted the squad coach, and he invited him to a meeting. – It shortly turned out that I would play in the first lineup – the officer recalls. He had quite a few experience playing volleyball sitting down due to the fact that he won the gold medal with the squad at the games twice. Invictus Games organized for soldiers who suffered injuries during service. He claims that through many years of rehabilitation he managed to get back to physical fitness. – We meet respective times from May to August at weekend or five-day groups. Beach volleyball is not played all year round, but for 12 months you gotta work on your form – says coach Janiak. For the remainder of the year, players practice at the gym in their towns.
Sergeant. Dariusz Cegiełka frequently visits the beach volleyball field in Gryfin, where he lives. – I train games, rebounds, run on sand to prepare my legs for effort. In this way I besides prepared for the planet Cup – he says.
Paralympic Dream
The planet ParaVolley Federation, an global organization aimed at people with mobility disabilities, organized the planet Paralympics Championship in China. 1 of the objectives of this event was to advance the beach volleyball of people with disabilities. “This is the first crucial step towards including this discipline in the Paralympic Games program,” says coach Janiak. As he emphasizes, if more and more teams play beach volleyball and want to compete in the next planet championships, there is simply a chance that this discipline will hit the Paralympic scene in 2032 in Brisbane, Australia. “Then our Paralympic dream would come true,” he adds.
