The Australian Volleyball Federation (AVF) is pleased to announce that Dan Ilott has been appointed as the coach of its ‘new look’ Australian Institute of Sport (AIS)/national men’s junior development program.

The program will be based at the AIS in Canberra and will offer full-time residential scholarship for a select group of youth and junior male athletes each year, similar to what has been offered in recent years. From January 2010, however, scholarship athletes will also be exposed to beach volleyball as part of their annual training and competition plans. The AIS is currently finalising plans for the development of beach volleyball facilities on site in Canberra to enable this to happen.

AIS Director Professor Peter Fricker said the new AIS/national men’s junior development program would further strengthen Australian volleyball through the development of talented young athletes.

‘We’ve already seen the resounding success of the AIS/Volleyball Team Austrlia Men program in Canberra and AIS/AVF Beach Volleyball National Centre of Excellence in Adelaide,’ Professor Fricker said.

‘The new AIS/national men’s junior development program will provide an important pathway for young athletes to be identified and developed with the view of progressing into either program.’

Dan Ilott commenced his new role saying ‘I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to lead this innovative new program and am confident that the performances of Australia’s men’s beach and indoor national teams will prosper as a direct result of the quality athletes that continue to graduate from this program to the senior international level of our sport.’

‘The athletes and I have a proud history to build on and are clear that our job is not done until we’ve helped Australian Volleyball to achieve Olympic success.’

The AVF will establish a new men’s technical committee to oversee the planning and management of the men’s junior development program. The committee will be comprised of the AVF High Performance Manager (Adam Sachs), national men’s indoor and beach head coaches (Russ Borgeaud and Steve Tutton, respectively) and the men’s junior development coach (Dan Ilott). Senior management staff from both the AIS and Australian Sports Commission will also be heavily involved in this process.