Vetkova departs Oltchim for Russian loan spell

Russian pivot Ekaterina Vetkova has left the Romanian champion Oltchim RM Valcea and joined Russian Superliga club Astrakhanochka on loan until the end of the season.

Vetkova has a contract with the Womens EHF Champions League participant Oltchim, but lacked playing practice in the club with several world-class foreign players.

The 26 year-old line player did not intend to return to the Russian championship at first.

The decisive step was made by Astrakhanochka head coach Vyacheslav Kirilenko. 

He has called Vetkova and asked her to help his club that is urgently in need of the line player.

Ekaterina Vetkova is the a 2009 World Champion with the Russian team where Kirilenko was an assistant coach to Evgeny Trefilov.

A move to Romania from Zvezda Zvenigorod in the summer of 2011 followed just a couple of months after Evgeny Trefilov left the Moscow region club.   

Vetkova was not in the list of the national team coach Vitaly Krokhin for the Womens EHF EURO 2012, the main reason for her omission from the squad being a lack of match practice.

Now, Vyacheslav Kirilenko is satisfied with the attitude of his newcomer: “It's clear that Ekaterina has no problems entering into our training process.

“She doesn't complain and works at full strength. Katya certainly will help us as an experienced pivot.”

This season, Astrakhanochka strengthened their squad with players from various national teams, including Russian Emilia Turey, Belorussians Liliya Artyukhovich and Valentina Yankovskaya, Serbian Elena Eric, Montenegrin Sandra Nikcevic, and Ukrainian Marina Vlasenko.

Astrakhanochka, the club from the south of Russia, is currently still in the EHF Cup, after beating Czech outfit Sokol Poruba and Hungarian Siofok.

Vyacheslav Kirilenko's team will meet Serbia’s Radnicki Kragujevac in the last 16.