Pelham Bay Park

The Daily Plant : Thursday, August 14, 2003

LIFE’S A BEACH WHEN YOU'RE SPIKING A VOLLEYBALL

One weekend a year, beach volleyball players—both top and novices—gather on the sands of New York City to compete for cash and other prizes. Now in its seventh year, Parks & Recreation’s 2003 Citywide Beach Volleyball Tournament has grown into one of the largest beach volleyball competitions in the northeast. In spite of bad weather predictions, the rain stayed at bay, and on Sunday, over 160 of the top players from Saturday’s preliminaries met at Orchard Beach to fight for top place in the free tournament.

"Despite the forecast for rain, the level of competition this year was stronger than ever," said Marketing and Special Events’ Lauren Brignone. "Orchard Beach was a beautiful location for the event, and the players there were very excited about the quality of the beach’s sand."

"It was a hot and humid day but all of the participants were excited to be there because the vista that Orchard Beach provides is so spectacular," said Bronx Chief of Recreation Iris Rodriguez-Rosa. "It’s wonderful to see such a physically fit group of people. There are so many ways to be active and they showed how much fun you can have while staying in shape."

On Saturday, roughly 350 tournament participants met in each borough to compete in the tournament qualifiers. Thanks to the Recreation and Operations staff in all five boroughs, all of the games went very smoothly and the top finishers had Saturday evening to rest up before meeting their matches from around the city. Playing wrapped up Sunday evening at Orchard Beach as top players were crowned in six divisions: Men’s and Women’s Open, Men’s A, Men’s and Women’s B and Coed Novice Quads. In the Men’s and Women’s Open divisions—which were the most competitive—first place winners won $1,000 and second place finishers won $500. All top finishers in each division also received gifts from Estee Lauder and Panasonic, and every participant went home with free goodies.

In the Women’s Open division, first place went to Jane Linn of Manhattan and Jill Leake of Long Beach, NY. Brooklyn’s Rewa Chan and Shelly Peariso of Audubon, NJ scored second. In the Men’s Open, Morgan Chapman and Amaury Velasco—both of Manhattan—beat out all other competition, and they were trailed by Manhattan’s Elvis Rodriguez and Bill Maik of West Palm Beach, FL who finished second. In the Men’s A division—which is the second highest level of competition—first place awards went to Gary and Bob Curran (both of New Jersey). In the Women’s B division, Manhattanites Yadira Rivas and Erja Vettenranta ultimately defeated their competitors. Alex Cho of Forest Hills, NY and Jorge Samuel of Hampton, NJ won the Men’s B division. Finally, in the Coed Novice Quads division, the winning team was Mamdouh Hassan, Kerri Koslosky, Redouane Haoj, and Ben Smyth who were all from Manhattan.

The 2003 Citywide Beach Volleyball Tournament was sponsored by KTU, Viacom, and the New York Post. Tachikara was the official volleyball of the tournament. Prizes were donated by Estee Lauder, Panasonic, and B. R. Guest Inc.

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