After Gaeta hosted the European
Beach Tour 2016 Finals last May, the Italian city is now preparing to host
another important beach handball event: the Calise Cup. The XVIII Calise Cup
and the XXX edition of the Memorial Calise will be held from July 6 to 8, as
one of the many competitions on the European Beach Tour (ebt) calendar.
For the XVIII Calise Cup, both
boys and girls Under 12 and women’s Under 18 categories have been added, as the
organisers’ major goals include driving interest in future events and increasing
the number of ebt points awarded to the tournament. Teams competing in the ebt
season collect points towards an overall tally, which determines the squads
that will contest the finals. To attract participants, it is of the organisers’
interest to offer a competition with more points available for the teams – and
the Calise Cup aims to host at least 30 squads in 2018, as they did in 2017.
“At this XXX edition of the
Calise Cup, more than 18 nations will be represented by the participating
teams, delegates and referees. We are already at 11, with Albania, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Germany, England, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and
Switzerland,” says President of the organising committee Cosmo Ciano, explaining
how they are counting on the fact that the IHF Beach Handball World
Championship will be held in Russia in late July, hoping non-European nations
will be attracted to the possibility of using the Calise Cup as a preparation
tournament:
“We are activating a new project ‘Gaeta,
European Preparation Centre for Beach Handball’ by contacting all the
federations and offering them this opportunity,” says Ciano, before outlining
the plans for the city to become a hub for beach sports.
“We have set ourselves a goal to
become ‘Gaeta, city of sport on the beach’ and then outlined a long-term
programme. Now, we are working on the beach handball and we are already
preparing projects with the FIGH and the EHF. But at the same time, we are
laying the foundations to expand to all the sport disciplines on the beach.”