Applicants are jostling to sit on the very first athletes' commission of the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB). The world body has published the list of candidates. It has 16 names, coming equally from indoor volleyball and beach volleyball. But, proof of the growing influence of women's volleyball, the players (11) clearly outnumber the players (5). The FIVB Athletes' Commission, the first of its kind, will be made up of ten members. Five of them will be elected by their peers, following an online ballot organized during the last two weeks of January, the other five being designated by the president of the FIVB, the Brazilian Ary S. Graça. The commission must include an equal number of women and men. It must also display an identical distribution of representatives of indoor volleyball and beach volleyball. For beach volleyball, the candidates are: Louise Bawden (Australia), Joshua Binstock (Canada), Julius Brink (Germany), Meppelink Madelein (Netherlands), Marketa Slukova Nausch (Czech Republic), Delcio Soares (Mozambique), Anouk Vergé-Depré (Switzerland), and Chen Xue (China). For indoor volleyball, the candidates are: Milagros Cabral de la Cruz (Dominican Republic), Neslihan Demir Güler (Turkey), Sam Deroo (Belgium), Małgorzata Glinka-Mogentale (Poland), Jordan Larson (United States), Ognjenovic Maja (Serbia), Samuele Papi (Italy), and Polina Rahimova (Azerbaijan).
