2024-09-20 08:03:17
Thirteen years abroad… then a surprise return to a French volleyball championship that has nevertheless been neglected by its international players. The double Olympic champion and star of the Blues, Earvin Ngapeth, signed on Thursday, September 19, with the Poitiers club for one season – with an option to leave at the end of 2024 in the event of an interesting offer. The 33-year-old receiver-attacker had been free since the end of May and the end of his contract with Halkbank Ankara, in Turkey.
“You are not dreaming… Earvin Ngapeth will be there on the 15the man in the colours of Alterna SPVB [Stade poitevin volley-ball] this season »the team rejoiced on its website when the announcement was made. On Thursday evening, the player was presented with the rest of the team, wearing a black jersey bearing the number 86, the Vienne department, according to a video broadcast by France Bleu Poitou. “I’ve been abroad for over ten years now. I’m the father of three children, they’re growing up, there’s school.”explained Earvin Ngapeth on the local station.
“I’m leaving myself the option, if something happens, to leave at the end of December. What is 100% certain is that I will be there for the entire first half of the season.”he added. The French championship, the Marmara SpikeLigue, resumes on Friday, September 27; Poitiers will play its first match the following day, at home, against Narbonne.
“There was a slight taste of unfinished business”
The star of the French team, who retained his Olympic title in Paris on August 10, joins a group that was only eleventh in the last regular season and absent from the playoffs since 2021. But this club is that of his heart city, the one where his mother still lives and where he made his first smashes and his first headlines. His father Eric had offered the SPVB its first champion title, in 1999.
Having passed through the national centre in Montpellier, Earvin Ngapeth started as a professional in Tours in 2008. Then, just three years later, he left the French championship for abroad, playing in the biggest clubs, including Modena in Italy and Kazan in Russia.
“I grew up in this room, with this team, in this cityinsisted the person concerned on France Bleu Poitou. My first big volleyball emotions were here. There was a little taste of unfinished business, I hadn’t worn this jersey yet. I knew it would happen, but not so quickly.”
His return to France puts the spotlight on the SPVB, as well as on the French championship, deserted by its top internationals due to lack of resources. The central Nicolas Le Goff, who plays for Montpellier, was until now the only Bleu among the Paris medallists to play in Ligue A next season. He will therefore be joined by the most illustrious of them, crowned best player of the Olympic tournament in 2021 and then in 2024.
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