00:00 The sun is shining, shoes are off and singlets are on as hundreds of keen volleyballers take
00:07 to the sand here in Cootamundra for the annual Coota Beach Volleyball event.
00:12 The setup you see behind me is the culmination of days of effort.
00:17 Eight hundred tons of sand pulled from the river at Jugiung and trucked over to Cootamundra
00:22 where it`s laid out across the street and leveled out to create a surface that some
00:26 people are saying is better than the beaches in Sydney.
00:30 The whole idea was born up in a pub more than 20 years ago as a group of Cootamundra locals
00:35 were looking for a way to create an event that would get the town some recognition.
00:41 They came up with the idea of doing a beach volleyball event despite the town being more
00:45 than 300 kilometers away from the nearest real beach.
00:49 That event has grown from a one-day event with one court and 16 teams to what we have
00:55 here this weekend, which is a three-day extravaganza.
00:59 More than 160 teams from across New South Wales are competing.
01:04 They`ve all traveled down for the day and they all seem to be having a great time.
01:07 I had a chat to a few of the competitors earlier today.
01:10 This is my second year.
01:11 Last year was so much fun, so I just wanted to come back again.
01:14 This is actually my first year of competing in the event.
01:17 So much fun.
01:18 Look at it.
01:19 Yeah, it`s really good.
01:20 I`m being a part of the Come Alive Gym in Cootamundra.
01:23 So I`ve got the team here and some other friendly friends.
01:26 I`m from a small town in Jigyeong, so it`s about 45 minutes from here.
01:33 I guess I`m just competing because my older sister is, all of her friends.
01:37 And it`s a good excuse.
01:38 Like, we don`t really get much of stuff like this around here, so it`s nice.
01:42 You know what?
01:43 I wasn`t expecting it in the middle of the street, but I`ll take it.
01:44 It`s good.
01:45 The weather is nice.
01:46 The sand is good.
01:47 I can`t complain.
01:48 We`ll be wrapping up this afternoon with finals in all grades.
01:51 But win or lose, one thing is for certain, everybody here is going to be going home,
01:56 regardless of where that is, with great memories of a weekend spent in the sun with mates.
02:01 And really, that`s what the whole event is all about.
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