After success in France, Van Lankvelt ready for World League

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This article was published 29/04/2013 (4790 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Toon Van Lankvelt hopes his winter in France will pay huge dividends for him this summer.

The 28-year-old Rivers native went off to Europe in search of a team where he could fill a leadership role and that’s exactly what he found in Nantes. Van Lankvelt played in 22 of Nantes’ 26 matches in the top French professional volleyball league and had 158 kills, 29 blocks and 11 aces.

He was also one of the older players on the team and was asked to be a leader.

All that resulted in Nantes posting a 19-7 record and placing third in the standings, the club’s best-ever finish. However, their season was cut short when they lost their best-of-three quarter-final 2-1 to Paris, which has advanced to the league final. Although Van Lankvelt felt his season ended early, he still believes it was a huge success and a great experience.

“Last year when I played in Italy — Italy is the top league in the world — I learned a lot from that because I was one of the younger guys on the team so you gain a lot of knowledge and skill from those older guys who have been around and done a lot of amazing things,” he said from Ottawa.

“I just wanted to transfer that this year to putting myself in that role. With the national team being one of the veteran guys, it’s good for me to have this year-round responsibility of playing and playing important roles and coming through in the big matches. It was key for me to get a lot of playing time and immerse myself in that role.”

Van Lankvelt, a 6-foot-6 left side, is now back in Canada training with the national team as it prepares for the World League. The annual international volleyball competition is huge for the Canadians as it gives them at least 10 matches against some of the top-ranked teams in the world, which will help develop the players.

The World League changed its format this year and put Canada in Pool C with South Korea, Finland, the Netherlands, Japan and Portugal. Canada, ranked 18th in the world, is the highest-ranked team in the pool and it has to prove it by winning the group to reach the quarter-finals in Argentina.

Van Lankvelt, who missed some World League matches last season because of illness, hopes to lead Canada, which opens World League play on May 31 in Quebec City, to the playoff round, but knows he’ll also be battling for court time.

“We have three or four guys in my position who have quite a bit of experience and it’s a similar role where I’ll be needed at times to be a veteran presence, whether it’s training or in the games,” he said. “Definitely a similar role to last summer.”

Regardless of how much court time he’ll get, Van Lankvelt plans to be a leader on the team and he understands that him sitting on the bench may also benefit Canada’s volleyball program in the future.

“It’s important to our program and that’s what we were lacking in the past is there was that starting lineup and the depth at times was lacking,” he said. “The depth we have now is major for us. All the top teams in the world have that depth and there are guys rotating in and out on a regular basis and we need that competition and it makes everyone better in the end.”

The national team, which also features Brandon native Dustin Schneider at setter, will host the NORCECA championship in Langley, B.C., in September.

» cjaster@brandonsun.com