Thirteen years abroad… and then a return, to everyone’s surprise, to a French volleyball championship despite having been forgotten by its internationals. The double Olympic champion and star of the Blues, Earvin Ngapeth, signed for the Poitiers club on Thursday 19 September for one season, with the option to leave at the end of 2024 in the event of an interesting offer. The 33-year-old receiver-attacker had been free since the end of May and the end of his contract with Halkbank Ankara in Türkiye.
“You are not dreaming… Earvin Ngapeth will be fine on the 15thmy man in the colours of Alterna SPVB [Stade poitevin volley-ball] this season »The team rejoiced on its website at the announcement. On Thursday evening, the player was presented alongside the rest of the team, wearing the black jersey adorned with the number 86, from the Vienne department, according to a video released by France Bleu Poitou. “I have been abroad for more than ten years. I am the father of three children, they are growing up, there is school.”Earvin Ngapeth explained into the microphone of the local radio station.
“I am leaving myself the possibility, if something happens, of leaving at the end of December. What is 100% certain is that I will be there throughout the phase.”The French league, the Marmara SpikeLigue, will resume on Friday 27 September, with Poitiers playing their first match the following day at home against Narbonne.
“There was a small sample of pending issues”
The star of the French national team, who retained their Olympic title in Paris on August 10, joins a group only 11th in the last regular season and absent from the playoffs since 2021. But this club is the one in his central city, the one where his mother still lives and where he made his first crush and its first starters. His father Eric gave the SPVB its first championship title in 1999.
After playing for the national team at Montpellier, Earvin Ngapeth made his professional debut at Tours in 2008. Then, just three years later, he left the French championship to go abroad, playing for top clubs including Modena in Italy and Kazan in Russia.
“I grew up in this room, with this team, in this city.the interested party from France Bleu Poitou insisted. My first big thrills in volleyball were here. There was a little taste of unfinished business, I hadn’t put on this jersey yet. I knew it would happen, but not so fast. »
His return to France has put the spotlight on the SPVB, as well as on the French championship, which has been abandoned by its top international players for lack of resources. Centre-back Nicolas Le Goff, who plays for Montpellier, was until now the only blue medallist among the Parisian medallists who would play in the League A next season. He will therefore be joined by the most illustrious of them, crowned best player of the Olympic tournament in 2021 and then in 2024.
