Czech Republic’s Kolocova and Kvapilova are already in Florida preparing to the #FTLMajor

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Czech Republic's Krystina Kolocova (left) and Michala Kvapilova are chasing their first World Tour medal as a team

The Fort Lauderdale Major will kick-off the beach volleyball World Tour five-star season in a couple of weeks, but some teams have wasted no time and already landed in Florida for the tournament.

Among them are Czech Republic’s national champions Krystina Kolocova and Michala Kvapilova.

The duo arrived in Miami on Tuesday and since then it has been training in Port St. Lucie, a small town nearly 100 miles north of Fort Lauderdale. Their time in Sunshine State has been a blessing when compared to the cold weather they would be facing in Europe right now.

“We decided to come to Florida earlier because it’s our first training camp outside,” the 29-year-old Kolocova told beachmajorseries.com. “We need to get used to playing outside and also to adapt to the conditions here, especially the wind.”

Kolocova and Kvapilova are joined on the trip by their new head coach, former Italian player Andrea Tomatis, who retired in 2016. They will be training with Japanese teams of Futami/Hasegawa and Mizoe/Hashimoto for the next days and will join up with Austrian, German and Swiss teams when they move to Fort Lauderdale next Sunday.

“We believe that arriving early will help us to adapt better to the conditions here in Florida,” Kvapilova added. “It’s very windy, so we’re going to concentrate on improving our serve in the wind and I think this can be the key to a good result. But we’re also going to find some time for a little sightseeing.”

První ráno v teple 🏝☀️ #florida #finally #warmweather #underarmourwomen #beachvolleyball

305 Likes, 4 Comments - Michala Kvapilová (@misakvapi) on Instagram: "První ráno v teple 🏝☀️ #florida #finally #warmweather #underarmourwomen #beachvolleyball"

The team competed in the Fort Lauderdale Major last year, finishing fifth. In their return to the city, they expect to enjoy the incredible atmosphere of the tournament again and, hopefully, end their campaign with a medal, which would be their first together in the World Tour.

“From last years’ experience, we think it’s going to be a great event,” says Kolocova. “Fort Lauderdale is a beautiful city and the venue was breathtaking. The organizers did a great job, so we hope this year is going to be same or even better. And we hope we can play well. We worked very hard this past year, so we hope that our game got better”.

The Czechs are on high as they showed huge progress in 201. In only their second season together, they climbed from 40th to eighth in the World Tour rankings, which granted them the right to compete in the Hamburg Finals last August.

CEV Beach Volleyball on Twitter

Women's gold for 🇨🇿 Czech Republic's Kristyna Kolocova and Michala Kvapilová at the CEV #BeachVolleyball #EuroBeachVolley Masters in Pelhrimov! @CzechVolleyball @tynamisa https://t.co/VmygnL8rJD

And 2018 started in even better fashion with Kolocova and Kvapilova winning the gold medal in the European Masters in their home sands of Pelhrimov in January.

“Winning tournaments is always a great feeling,” the London 2012 Olympian Kolocova added. “And as we have a new coaching staff we were excited to see how the work from the past few months would pay off. We are so happy that it did,”

Enjoy Florida, ladies!