Video record allows Grankin into elite Sergey Tetyukhin Club

Moscow, Russia, October 21, 2014.  One month after the end of the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship Poland 2014, the Russian Volleyball Federation has finally admitted Sergey Grankin into the elite Sergey Tetyukhin Club, whose members have at least 200 official caps with the men’s national team.

The reason for the delay is one match from the dawn of the setter’s international career, which was under question.  The official score sheet of the game does not indicate that Grankin entered the court, but according to the match statistics he took part.  To solve this problem, the Russian federation had to dig out a video record of the match and, as it turned out, the statistician was right.  Although for a very short time, the young playmaker did play in that match.

This finding brings Grankin’s count to exactly 200 official caps with Russia’s national team with the first one being a 2006 World League game against France and the latest one - the fifth place match against Iran at the World Championship last month.

This makes the Dinamo MOSCOW setter the seventh member of the club bearing the name of the all-time leader Sergey Tetyukhin, who has played in 293 matches for Sbornaya.  The other five members are Alexey Kazakov with 276 caps, Konstantin Ushakov with 254, Vadim Khamuttskikh with 237, Ruslan Olikhver with 213 and Alexey Kuleshov with 200.

Ushakov and Olikhver have also played for the teams of the Soviet Union and of the Commonwealth of Independent States, but those are not counted towards Sergey Tetyukhin Club membership, since not all records are available in the archives.  The Russian federation applies very strict criteria in keeping count of the players’ records.  Only official matches played under the auspices of CEV or FIVB are considered and only if the player actually participated in the game and was not merely registered as a team member on the official score sheet.

Currently, closest to joining the club is libero Alexey Verbov with 172 caps.

Photo: Sergey Grankin (#5 in the middle) celebrates with his teammates the victory in the final of the 2013 CEV VELUX Volleyball European Championship in Copenhagen.