This spring after a twenty year break, newly renovated water complex “Olympic” (location: Kakutsa Cholokhashvili Avenue) hosted an 
international water polo tournament. The Grand Opening of the complex was attended by the president of the Water Sports Federation of Europe. Idea, which was generated during the opening evening, and concerned conduct of an important competition in the capital of Georgia, was actively supported by the Water Sports National Federation of Georgia, Georgian National Olympic Committee, Tbilisi City Hall and the management of the Ilia State University. University has a sports club “Ligamus” which was established last year and offered shelter to the national water polo team (majority of the players later became part of the team “Ligamus”).
Conduct of the first qualification round for LEN Trophy 2010-2011 for European clubs is scheduled for October 8-10. It will bring together 21 clubs, which are distributed in four groups and will compete for advancement to the next round.
Games of the A Group will be held in Tbilisi. Among participants are: “CN Possillipo” (Naples, Italy), “Olympic” (Nice, France), “Honved” (Budapest, Hungary), “Enka” (Istanbul, Turkey), “ASA” (Tel-Aviv, Israel), “Ligamus-Tbilisi” (Tbilisi, Georgia).
Games of the B Group will take place in Cattaro. The group unites the following teams: “Academy” (Cattaro, Chernogoria), “SV” (Weiden, Germany), “Douai” (France), “WC” (Patch, Sebia), “Illichivets” (Mariupol, Ukraine).
Group C will be hosted in Esslingen: “SSV” (Esslingen, Germany), “FTC” (Budapest, Hungary), “NOP” (Patra, Greece), “Dinamo” (Moscow, Russia), “Belfast” (Ireland).
D group will meet in Koper, Slovenia. The following teams are invited to compete in this city: “RN” (Florence, Italy), “Vail Ranch” (Chernogoria), “AC Paok” (Thesalloniki, Greece), ”Rokava” (Koper, Slovenia), “Orta Dogu” (Ankara, Turkey).
According to Sergo Ratiani: “It is the first case in the history of Georgian national sports that its water polo team will participate in European club championship.” The event becomes of special importance since qualification games of the A Group will be held in the capital of Georgia. It will host the strongest clubs from Europe, among them the team from Naples: last year’s semifinalist of the champion league.
Georgia will be represented by the water polo club “Ligamus-Tbilisi” from the Ilia State University. In fact, both teams of the University “Ligamus” and “Tbilisi” qualified for participation in the competition, but following a decision to reinforce and effectively use resources it was decided to sign a memorandum of cooperation, form one team of the best players and participate in this tournament as a team “Ligamus-Tbilisi”.
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