Tokyo, Japan, July 26, 2018 – Brazilian beach volleyball legend Isabel Salgado is leading the charge for success as coach of Japan’s Olympic hopefuls Takumi Takahashi/Yusuke Ishijima and Keisuke Shimizu/Yoshiumi Hasegawa.
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FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour - Tokyo
During the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Tokyo 3-star, Isabel discussed her experience, her philosophies in beach volleyball and how she is helping the Japanese teams reach their Tokyo 2020 Olympic dreams.
Isabel has had a long, accomplished career in volleyball and beach volleyball, and she serves as the biggest inspiration to children Pedro, Maria Clara and Carol, who are also well-established beach volleyball athletes.
“Beach volleyball is in my blood,” Isabel said. “I think I made a great decision by moving to this discipline because I love it a lot.
“After I stopped playing volleyball, I became a coach at Flamengo and had a very strong team with players like Fernanda Venturini, Leila Barros and Virna Dias. I then moved to Vasco and stayed there for two years before I made the decision to move to beach volleyball. After that I worked with my son Pedro and my daughters Maria Clara and Carolina.
“Since May, I’ve been working with the Japanese men’s teams Takahashi/Gottsu and Shimizu/Hasegawa.”
Takahashi/Gottsu claimed instant success last May when the team won gold at the Bangkok 1-star, owing to their good working relationship with their coach.
“I have a very close relationship with the players. They are all eager to play in the Olympic Games here in Tokyo. They are focused on developing this sport in their country.
“I treat them like my own children and have a great relationship with them. Having a more human approach and feeling to the job are important to me, and these will make us achieve our goals easier.”
The Brazilian mentor is applying her own philosophies and combining them with the outstanding Japanese work ethic.
“The Japanese are very disciplined, which makes it easy to work with them. My focus is to try and put more quality in their tournaments and in training.
“Brazilians learned a lot from Japan before, when we wanted to develop our own volleyball programme. We came here several times and took the opportunity to learn about how they do their programme.
“Now they need to exchange information with different countries. I hope that the tournaments here in Japan will become bigger to attract more players.
“It will be a challenging task because we only have two more years before the Olympics, so we have to keep an open mind and take every opportunity to develop their game.”