After leading his young Volleyroos team to a series of inspiring victories in Tokyo to qualify for the London Olympic Games, Australian coach Jon Uriarte will now face a new foe on the Olympic stage - his Argentinean son Nicolas.

Australia is expected to line up against Uriarte’s home country Argentina, for which his son currently plays, in their Olympic pool along with hosts Great Britain and strong European nations Poland, Italy and Bulgaria.

Nicolas Uriarte has already tasted success in Argentinean colours after winning bronze at the 2009 Junior World Championships and the father-son duel will be one to watch when the teams take the court in London.

“It is an amazing feeling to go to the Olympics with my son after both of us have got their on our own merits,” said Seoul Olympic bronze medallist Jon Uriarte.

“I’ve been through a similar situation before when I coached against the Argentineans and five of my good mates were a part of their team set up.”

Having watched his son and many of his teammates on the court for many years, Jon will have some extra knowledge on the Argentinean team.

“I know a lot about my son obviously but also many of the other players in the team as I helped promote them to the senior team in my time coaching in Argentina so that should help us in planning to play against them.” 

Putting his parent hat on, he remains as any father would of their child making the pinnacle of sporting competitions, a proud dad.

“It is absolutely amazing that he will be competing. I have had such an amazing life and been so lucky to live my life around the sport and it is great for my son to get the same opportunity and see him so happy.”

Having had an accomplished career for the Argentinean side himself, Uriarte coached the Australians to their first Olympics through qualification where they went on to compete at the Athens Games in 2004.

Returning to South America soon after the Athens campaign, Uriarte’s magic touch was welcomed back in 2011 as the Volleyroos looked to return to Olympic competition having missed out on Beijing.     

“In 2002 we changed the approach for the team and starting offering scholarships to young players through the AIS.

“I kept in touch while I was gone and watched how the team evolved from the structures we put in place before Athens and when I got the opportunity to return I knew we had a strong young team.

“It was great to be part of planting the seed for this team to grow before now getting the opportunity to return to the harvest.”

The team of young guns realised their Olympic dream with Uriarte at the helm after winning five of seven matches at the Olympic Qualification Tournament to finish as the highest ranked Asian team and secure the country’s third Olympic berth having also gained automatic qualification as the host nation in Sydney.

“It was an exceptional effort to qualify for London as it was in 2004. The program at the AIS has worked brilliantly and it has been great working with the new generation of Australia’s volleyballers.

“Volleyball in Australia is not as big here as it is around the world. There are 200 countries that are members of the federation and we are one of 12 to compete in London. The program has done such great work and we came through one of the toughest qualifying tournaments to make the Games.”

Knowing the team is filled with young players on the up, Uriarte is exceptionally excited for what the future holds for this team and volleyball in Australia.

“I think we have such an ambitious group that is improving day after day. This team has amazing potential and they are no where near the heights they could reach.

“We are heading to London looking to crash the parties of some of the higher ranked teams while knowing that in next four and eight year blocks this team could do something really special, really important for the sport in Australia.”

The Australian team will now go on to take on two of the toughest teams that are set to compete in London, Poland and Russia, having already played other group opponents Italy and Bulgaria in the lead-up to the Olympic Qualification Tournament.

“We started back at training a couple of days after the qualifiers and will head to Europe to make sure we are getting the strongest competition before the Games.

“We were looking to play strong teams in the lead up to the qualifiers and it has worked out to be a very good coincidence that we have already come up against many of those that we will face in London.”

Australia will now send a team of 12 to London with the team likely to be announced next week.

Matt Bartolo
AOC