January 29, 2004 — Russia’s top-level junior age volleyball players will be arriving in Utah on Friday to participate in the Moscow-Utah Youth Games. These games are the winter edition of the Moscow-Utah summer games held in Russia last year. Over 300 of Utah’s finest athletes competed in the summer games in twelve different sports last July. Volleyball is the only sport involved in both the summer and winter edition of these games and promises to offer an exciting rematch between these two teams.

Volleyball matches between Team Moscow and Team Utah will take place on Crimson Court at the University of Utah, located just north of the Huntsman Center on Monday Feb. 2, 7:00pm, Wednesday Feb. 4, 3:00pm, and Friday Feb. 6, 8:00pm. Admission is free.

Top athletes from each country’s respective region are competing on the Moscow and Utah volleyball teams. In their first meeting last summer despite a valiant effort, Team Utah fell to the Russians in three straight games (17-25, 15-25, 23-25). This proved to be a unique experience for many of the Utah athletes. Many had no prior experience in foreign competition and none had competed in front of 9,000 enthusiastic Russians. With Team Moscow returning for a series of three re-matches next week at the University of Utah, Team Utah is looking to capitalize on the home court advantage they missed last summer.

Team Utah has made several changes to their roster with the addition of Kathryn Lovell and Caitlyn Anderson, as Ilima Sam Fong and Gini Mendenhall are unable to compete.

For a complete listing of all of the games activities, to purchase tickets for opening and closing ceremonies, or to get a complete event calendar visit www.iva-volleyball.org and click on the Moscow-Utah Game link.