Indonesia wants Sabina Altynbekova of Kazakhstan to help revive women's volleyball

A Kazakhstani volley ball player famous in Asia for hear kawaii appearance Sabina Altynbekova will be invited by the Indonesian Volleyball Federation to help revive women’s volleyball, Tengrinews reports citing Vesti.kz.

Indonesia stopped holing women’s volleyball tournaments stopped in 2011 because they were unpopular. In 2014, state-owned oil company Pertamina became the chief sponsor of the Indonesian Volleyball Federation. The company aims to revive volleyball in the country. The Federation wants to invite the Kazakh athlete because Sabina has a lot of fans in Indonesia and can greatly contribute to the popularity of the sport.

“We want to bring Sabina Altynbekova if necessary. But even if she comes here it is unlikely that she would be playing for one of the clubs because it would mean strengthening on of the teams. Besides, there may be visa and housing issues that would require additional funding to deal with. That is why we hope to have Sabina as a guest watching matches of our Pro League. She has many fans in Indonesia. We hope that her arrival would revive the interest to women’s volleyball in Indonesia,” Pertamina’s Marketing Director Ahmad Bambang said.

Sabina, 18, became popular in the blink of an eye during the Asian Under-19 Championships championship in Taipei in 2014. She has been invited to various fashion projects since, but the Kazakhstani bijin declined all the offers, because she wanted to concentrate on her favorite sport. Despite the lack of interest to offers from beauty and fashion industries, Sabina enthusiastically accepted an invitation to Hong Kong. She expressed her wish to represent Kazakhstan as a volleyball player, hence all sport related travels are welcome. In Hong Kong the athlete met her counterparts from the local volleyball team and hordes of fans. She also participated in a local TV show.

Earlier, the Kazakh kawaii and her coach Lyudmila Perevertova were invited by the V-league to Japan. Sabina will have several training sessions and experience exchanges with Japanese players and take part in TV shows for FujiTV.

A trip to beautiful Indonesia could also be on a busy schedule of the youth athlete soon.

By Gyuzel Kamalova