Sam Flowerday to represent Australia in international volleyball comp
The recent Proserpine State High School graduate has had a meteoric rise to the top of his sport.
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A former Proserpine State High School student is in with a chance to represent Australia at the Olympic Games, as his star continues to rise in the sphere of competitive volleyball.
Sam Flowerday has had a whirlwind rise to highest levels of competition in Australia, and on the eve of his 19th birthday, is set to take on the world, debuting for the Volleyroos in the Volleyball Men’s Nations League competition in Italy this month.
The talented 193cm outside hitter, or ‘wing spiker,’ started playing socially in Year 9 at Prossie high.
After success in some inter-school competitions, and encouragement from coaches Nicole Ryan and Ben Smith, he signed up to attend Volleyball Queensland’s Junior Pirates Camp in 2018, where talent scouts selected him to play for Queensland at the Australian Institute of Sport’s volleyball academy in Canberra.
From there, the accolades kept coming, and by the time Flowerday had finished school, he had already travelled to Switzerland and the Netherlands to compete in beach and indoor volleyball on Australia’s junior development squad.
Last year, he was one of just four AIS players selected to represent Australia in beach volleyball at the under 19 Asian Championships in Thailand.
The competition was ultimately cancelled because of COVID but that did not slow Flowerday’s momentum.
He scored a part time scholarship at the start of 2021 to train with emerging Volleyroos at the South Australian Sports Institute, picking up two gold medals in division two of the men’s beach volleyball tour.
He then put his name forward for the Nations League and secured one of 17 coveted spots on Australia’s senior men’s squad.
He and the squad flew to Poland at the beginning of May for a training camp ahead of the hotly contested international competition.
Along with senior men’s national teams from 15 other countries, they will enter an athlete ‘bubble’ in Italy on May 24, and stay there until competition ends in late June.
And if that was not enough excitement for one teenager, Flowerday will return home to Australia for just three weeks (two of them in quarantine) following the Italy competition before jetting off to Canada on a full academic scholarship at Thompson Rivers University, where he will study Natural Resource Sciences and play on the ‘WolfPack’ volleyball team.
Proud mum Sue Flowerday said the way her son was going, Olympic selection was a very real possibility.
“Moving forward, he’ll be looking to be named on the Volleyroos squad for Olympic qualifiers,” Sue said.
“The Olympics is his next goal, and I can’t see why it couldn’t be the next ones [Tokyo].
“He’s already playing in the same league.”
If you are interested in cheering on a local lad as he competes on the world stage, head to the FIVB Volleyball Nations League Facebook page for details of how to get in on the action.
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