Celeste Plak
| Celeste Plak | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||
| Full name | Celeste Plak | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | Netherlands | ||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
October 26, 1995 Tuitjenhorn, Netherlands | ||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.90 m (6 ft 3 in) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 87 kg (192 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Spike | 324 cm (128 in) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Block | 310 cm (120 in) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Volleyball information | |||||||||||||||||||
| Position | Wing Spiker / Opposite spiker | ||||||||||||||||||
| Current club | Volley Bergamo | ||||||||||||||||||
| Number | 4 | ||||||||||||||||||
Honours
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Celeste Plak (born October 26, 1995) is a Dutch volleyball player, who plays as an outside hitter. She plays for Volley Bergamo, and is the first non-caucasian player to be a part of the Netherlands women's national volleyball team.
Personal
Plak was born in Tuitjenhorn, daughter of Surinamese kickboxing world champion Kenneth and Dutch volleyball player Karin.[1] She has a younger brother, Fabian, who also plays volleyball.[2] Plak went to the Johan Cruyff College in Nijmegen.
Plak is a fan of Anouk, with her favourite songs being "Nobody's Wife", "Good God" and "Down and Dirty".
Career
Plak was first taken by her mother to the volleyball school she worked in at the age of 6. When she was 10, she was invited to join the Nederlandse Volleybal School, and after two months there, Plak left the selection because she thought she was not good enough. Retreating back to local club De Boemel, a few months laterher former coach visited her matches during the national Dutch youth championships in Sneek. He was impressed an convinced her that she should come back and had a good chance to make it to the national elite team. Plak eventually was accepted into the Dutch youth national team, the Jeugd Oranje (Orange Youth) in 2009, at the age of 13. Her coach said Plak would become the first Black player in the Dutch national team,[3] and she achieved this in 2013, debuting at the FIVB World Grand Prix.[4]
As in intern for the Orange Youth, Plak lived during weekdays at the national sports centre in Papendal, only returning home during weekends.[3] After playing for a year with the first division (eerste divisie) club Dinto in Warmenhuizen, the Dutch federation advised her to start playing for a team in the highest division (eredivisie). She could choose between Weert and Alterno Apeldoorn. Because she wanted to stay at Papendal, where she attended Johan Cruyff College in Nijmegen, she chose Alterno. She was at that time sixteen years old. Plak still had to travel a lot, especially in the weekends when Alterno played matches on both Saturdays and Sundays. During these weekends she could stay in the house of the assistant coach and old international player Suus Luttikhuis, together with her husband and three children. Later she got in the house a more permanent room and sometimes she stayed there six days per week. A bit later Plak moved permanently into the house of Suus Luttikhuis and left Papendal.
After many years ignoring offers by foreign teams, during a 2014 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship qualification match in Croatia, Plak was seen by manager Donato Saltini. He helped her to an international club: Volley Bergamo in Italy, for which she started playing in the 2014–15 season. She moved for it to Bergamo and had an apartment just next to the city.
Plak was the Netherlands' top scorer at the 2014 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship.[5]
Clubs
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VV De Boemel (2008–2010) - VV Dinto (2010–2012)
- VV Alterno (2012–2014)
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Volley Bergamo (2014–2016) - Igor Gorgonzola Novara (2016-present)
References
- ↑ "Cookies op Trouw.nl".
- ↑ "Nevobo".
- 1 2 "Celeste Plak: van lokale club naar Nederlands team". 26 September 2014.
- ↑ "FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix 2013".
- ↑
External links
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