For Alexander Volkov, volleyball is not only a profession, but also a hobby, a favorite pastime of his life. The central blocking team of Russia has been playing at the highest level for many years, managed to win in many club tournaments, but considers the gold of the 2012 Olympic Games to be the top of its career.
Gradual take-off
The famous athlete Alexander Volkov is a volleyball player, whose height is 210 cm. With such solid natural data as a child, he simply had no choice - either in basketball or volleyball. The tall boy hesitated to 11 years, after which he made his final choice in favor of volleyball.
Alexander Volkov faithfully studied the basics of volleyball art at the Olympus sports center, his first trainer was Vera Kasatkina. In 2002, a promising central blocker was recruited into one of the strongest teams in the Super League - Moscow Dynamo.
Also, a seventeen-year-old teenager made a favorable impression on the coaches of the country's youth team, in which Alexander Alexandrovich Volkov won his first trophy at the European Championships.
The Muscovite made his debut in the main team in 2005, but for several years he could not win a place in the main team in the competition with veterans.
Only in 2007, a young volleyball player firmly secured a place in the starting clip after a bright game at the World Cup.
The first Olympic cycle
In 2008, the central blocking Russian volleyball team, Alexander Volkov, went to his first Olympics. The men's national team for a long time could not win big tournaments, so the final bronze medals were a good result.
After the Beijing Games, Alexander played for Dynamo Moscow for another two seasons, after which he decided to change the situation and try his hand at the foreign championship.
In 2010, Alexander Volkov, the bronze Olympic medalist in volleyball, signed a contract with the Italian Cuneo team. Here he played great and helped the club win the Italian Championship and the Country Cup.
True, in the European Champions League, “Cuneo” did not perform so well, failing to reach the stage of the “Final Four” after losing to the former club of Alexander - Dynamo.
In Italy, Alexander spent only one season, after which in 2011 he returned to Russia, where he became a player of Kazan “Zenith”.
The year 2011 was particularly successful for the blocker, who won two major tournaments in the national team - the World Cup and the World League.
Olympic passions
In January 2012, the first serious injury appeared in the sports biography of Alexander Volkov. After the operation to remove a fragment of cartilage from his knee, he returned to the club, but it soon became clear that the surface operation did not fix the problem, but only masked it.
The question arose about a new surgical intervention, however, Volkov dreamed of going to the 2012 Olympics, so he decided to sacrifice his knee for the performance at the main starts of the four-year period. The last word was left to the head coach of the national team Vladimir Alekno, who after long hesitation still included Alexander in the team.
Before the decisive matches of the Olympic tournament, everything went well, but then the injury sharply worsened. According to Alekno, every day doctors had to pump a few tens of milliliters of fluid from Volkov’s knee. Thanks to these painful procedures, he was able to overcome the whole tournament through pain, leaving every match in the starting lineup.
Especially valuable was his contribution to the winning final match against Brazil. Alexander brought a decisive point in the third installment with his spectacular single block, after which there was a chance for the national team to return to the game with a score of 1: 2 in sets.
Last years
Just becoming an Olympic champion, Alexander Volkov agreed to a complex operation on the knee joint, which took place in October 2012. The recovery period lasted a long time, the volleyball player completely missed the 2012/2013 season.
Only in September 2013, Alexander returned to the game, again became the captain of “Zenith” won the national championship. However, at the end of the season, the ill-fated right knee failed again. This time, Volkov injured the meniscus. So Alexander suffered for several years and only at the end of 2015 began to return to his usual level. He moved to Ural, where he was able to become the team leader and regained the confidence of the national team coaches.
In 2016, a volleyball player played at his third Olympic Games, followed by a series of transitions from one Russian club to another. Now Alexander Volkov is a player of the newly formed Zenit club from St. Petersburg.