Who wore number 11 in volleyball?

Athletes in every team sport have a number on their jersey to identify them. In professional volleyball, players are given numbers between 1 and 20. Sometimes, players get to choose their own number and other times, they’re just assigned a number by the team.

Sérgio Santos

Sérgio Dutra dos Santos, known as Serginho or Escadinha, is a former Brazilian volleyball player. As a member of Brazil men’s national volleyball team, he won gold medals at the 2004 and 2016 Olympics and silver medals at the 2008 and 2012 editions.

Additionally, he’s a two-time World Champion (2006, 2010) and a multi-medalist of the World League, South American Championship, World Cup and the Grand Champions Cup. In 2009 he became the first libero to be named Most Valuable Player in the history of the FIVB World League.

He is widely regarded as one of the best liberos of all time and is unquestionably the best libero of the 2000s, with more awards than any other libero. Known for his outstanding service reception and digging capabilities, teams often attempt to avoid Sergio when serving. Beyond his defensive abilities, he is also capable of running the offense as a ‘second setter’ if the setter is forced to make the first contact. This is in large part due to Sergio playing the setting position while growing up and subbing in as a setter for his professional club teams over the years.

Sergio is multi-medialist of every volleyball tournament in the 2000s. He is a seven-time South American Champion and he won with Brazil every South American Championship during his whole career in the national team. In 2002 and 2006 he achieved titles of World Champion. During his career, he achieved 7 gold and 3 silver medals of FIVB World League. In his achievements are also medals in World Cup, World Grand Champions Cup, and Pan American Games.

In 2004 he became an Olympic Champion for the first time. However, in the next two Olympics, the Brazilian national volleyball team won silver medals only. Serginho semi-retired from the national team after the 2012 Olympics, and returned only for the 2015 World League. After that he declined to compete at the 2016 Rio Olympics, but was persuaded by Bernardinho to return. Bernardinho claimed that, while Serginho no longer had the agility that made him famous, he had experience and maturity to lead the team during a tournament that would certainly be rife with pressure on the Brazilian team, since they were playing on their country and coming from two losses on previous Olympics.

Serginho was essential to motivate his team against France. They were losing, and on a break, Serginho told his colleagues that, while they all had at least one more chance at going to the Olympics, he didn’t – those would be his last Olympic Games. Eventually, Brazil won the gold medal against Italy, and Serginho was acclaimed by the cheering fans, who called him king. After the match against Italy, Serginho was named the tournament’s most valued player. He announced after the Rio finals against Italy he will play professionally for two more years.

Yekaterina Gamova

Yekaterina Aleksandrovna Gamova is a retired Russian volleyball player. She was a member of the national team that won the gold medals at the 2006 and 2010 FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championships, and the silver medal in both the Athens 2004 and Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Due to her stature and dominance at the net, she has been hailed as the “Queen of Volleyball”. She is 2.02 m (6 ft 8 in) tall with EU size 49 feet, making her one of the tallest female athletes in the world. Her role was outside hitter/opposite.

Playing with Dynamo Moscow she won the silver medal at the 2008–09 CEV Indesit Champions League, and she was awarded “Best Scorer”.

For the 2009/2010 season, she joined the Turkish team Fenerbahçe Acıbadem. With this team she won the Turkish League Championship and went to the 2010 CEV Indesit Champions League Final Four. Her team finished in the second place after being defeated by Volley Bergamo and she was awarded “Best Scorer”.

She was a member of the Russia national team that won the 2010 World Championship and was named the Most Valuable Player of the event.

After the defeat in the quarterfinals by Brazil in the 2012 Olympics she considered quitting playing with the national team but still continued at club level. “I will take a break with the national team. I don’t know if it will be a permanent leave, or if I will resume after a long pause”.

Gamova won with the Russian club Dinamo Kazan the 2013–14 CEV Champions League held in Baku, Azerbaijan, defeating 3-0 the home owners Rabita Baku in the semifinals and 3-0 to the Turkish VakıfBank İstanbul in the final. She was awarded tournament’s Most Valuable Player and Best Scorer.

Gamova won the gold medal in the 2010 FIVB Club World Championship, when her team defeated 3-0 to the Brazilian club Molico Osasco for the championship match. She was named the Best Opposite Spiker and Most Valuable Player among the championship Best Team.

In May 2016, Gamova announced on Match TV and on her Facebook page that she wants to retire from her sports career because of an injury. With that said, she didn’t participate at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Micah Christenson

Micah Makanamaikalani Christenson is an American volleyball player, known as a member of the United States men’s national volleyball team and Russian club Zenit Kazan. He is a Bronze medalist of the Olympic Games Rio 2016, gold medalist of the 2014 World League and 2015 World Cup, 2013 NORCECA Champion.

Christenson was a star basketball and volleyball player for Kamehameha Schools Kapālama in Honolulu, graduating in 2011. He led his teams to three state championship titles (basketball in 2009 and 2011, and volleyball in 2011) and played in a total of six state championship games. He attended the University of Southern California and played for the USC Trojans men’s volleyball team.

He was a starter on the U.S. Junior National Team that won a gold medal in the 2010 NORCECA Junior Championship in Canada and also played the FIVB 2009 Boy’s Youth World Championship in Italy. In 2011 he played for the U.S. Junior National Team during the 2011 FIVB Men’s Junior World Championship in Brazil where the team placed fourth, one of the U.S.’s highest finishes at the tournament. He captained the U.S. Junior National Team to win a gold medal at the 2012 NORCECA Men’s Junior Continental Championship in Colorado Springs.

He was supposed to play on the 2013 U.S. Men’s Junior National Team but got called up to the senior team instead. He debuted with the U.S. national team at the NORCECA Championship, which USA won; Christenson was named Best Server and Best Setter in this tournament. He also competed in the 2013 FIVB World Grand Champions Cup. In 2014 he won the gold medal at the World League, held in Florence, Italy. He began senior-level competition at age 20. He is one of the youngest starting setters to compete for the U.S. on a national team for both junior level and senior level.

At club level, he won 2016-2017 Superlega, Italy’s top championship, with Cucine Lube Civitanova.

Andrea Zorzi

Andrea Zorzi is a former Italian volleyball player, who won two World Championships with the Italy men’s national volleyball team (1990 and 1994). A 201 cm athlete, Zorzi was an effective spiker playing usually as opposite hitter. He was popularly known as Zorro.

After his debut in Bormio in 1986, he totaled 325 caps with Italian national team. He was a silver medalist in the 1996 Summer Olympics and also competed at the 1988 and 1992 games.

Playing for almost all the major volleyball clubs of Italy, including Maxicono Parma and Sisley Treviso, he won several titles: these include two Italian Championships (1990, 1996) and one European Champions League in 1995. In 1991 he was declared World’s Best Player by FIVB. Zorzi totaled 328 caps for the national team of Italy.

Piotr Nowakowski

Piotr Nowakowski is a Polish volleyball player, known as a member of the Poland men’s national volleyball team, participant at the Olympic Games (London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020), World Champion (2014, 2018), 2009 European Champion and 2012 World League winner, 2011 World Cup silver medalist, multiple–time Polish Champion (2012, 2013, 2015). At the professional club level, he chose to play for Projekt Warsaw.

Hristo Zlatanov

Hristo Zlatanov is a Bulgarian-Italian volleyball player. He is the son of Dimitar Zlatanov.

Igor Filippov

Igor Vladimirovich Filippov is a Russian male volleyball player. He is known as part of the Russia men’s national volleyball team. He won the bronze medal at the 2015 European Games in Baku. On club level he chose to play for Belogorie.

Andrea Drews

Andrea Carrie “Annie” Drews is an American professional volleyball player known for playing with the United States women’s national volleyball team. Drews was elected as the Most Valuable Player of the 2019 FIVB Women’s Volleyball Nations League in Nanjing, China, where USA won the gold medal and the Best Opposite of the 2019 FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Cup where the U.S. finished in second place. She won gold with the national team at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.