Mullin ready to sand and deliver for GB

Tuesday 3 July 2012

SHAUNA MULLIN, the former Scotland international indoor player, will, along with English partner Zara Dampney, line up for Team GB when the beach volleyball event gets underway at Horse Guards parade.

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Roddy Mackenzie

Mullin's selection means she will become the second Scot to play the sport at an Olympics. Audrey Cooper, the GB women's coach, took part at the Atlanta Games in 1996, the year beach volleyball became an Olympic sport.

A former indoor player with City of Edinburgh where she started out in the third division, Mullin had the chance to try out for the GB indoor team when the programme was confirmed in 2006. However, she caught the beach volleyball bug playing at the World University Games in Cyprus and, since 2009, has travelled the world amassing world ranking points with Dampney.Ranked as high as 32 in the world, the pair were fifth at last year's Olympic Test event and also reached 17th at the World Championships in Rome where they lost out to American double Olympic gold medallist Misty May-Treanor and her partner Kerri Walsh."Last summer gave us a glimpse of what it was going to be like playing in front of a home crowd at Horse Guards Parade," said Mullin, who was born in Johannesburg but considers Edinburgh her home. "It was amazing – the crowd was only 1500 and it was the biggest home crowd we've ever played in front of. When you think of that multiplied by ten then it's going to be out of this world. We're going to have to work hard on taking it all in as well as focusing on what we're doing."Mullin believes the pair have learned a lot from their experiences on the world circuit after initially finding it difficult. "We went through a stage a couple of years ago of getting to the third set and losing 15-13 or 16-14 and it was very frustrating," she added. "But it is something you need to go through to learn to close out sets and that's something we did really well last year."A lot of the work we are doing is finding a cruising speed and then changing a gear and recognising when to do that as well as the troubleshooting – listening to your partner and supporting them or stepping up yourself to get the team back on track."Kenny Barton, British Volleyball's performance programme manager, anticipates the sport being one of the highlights of the Games."Criss-crossing the globe over the past five years, our players and staff have demonstrated a focused resilience, fighting, week in week out on the FIVB World Beach tour, learning and re-learning ways to take on the best beach players in the world to earn their right to compete on the Olympic sand," he said. "I hope the British public will get behind our athletes, and I have no doubt that they will enjoy the physicality, fun, and vibrancy of our sport."

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Mullin ready to sand and deliver for GB

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