Who Is Alessandro Bovolenta: Stats, Career and What It Takes to Play Opposite
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Alessandro Bovolenta is the opposite for Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza and for the Italian national team. Born in 2004 in Rome, he has extended his deal with Piacenza until 2029 and was called up for the entire 2026 Volleyball Nations League, Ningbo Finals included. At 22 he is not a prospect anymore: he is one of the Italian opposites you build a team around.
Profile: the key numbers
- Full name: Alessandro Alberto Bovolenta
- Date of birth: 27 May 2004
- Place of birth: Rome
- Position: opposite
- Height: 202 cm according to his FIVB profile. The club website lists him at 207 cm: the two sources don't agree, so take the number with a pinch of salt.
- Club 2026/27: Gas Sales Bluenergy Piacenza (under contract until 2029)
- Shirt number: 23
- National team: Italy, called up for the 2026 VNL
- Instagram: @alessandro.bovolenta_
His club career
Bovolenta started his pro career in Ravenna. First the 2021/22 season split between Serie B and SuperLega, then two full years in A2 with Consar from 2022 to 2024. That is the stretch where he went from being a tall, powerful kid to an opposite who can carry a whole season as a starter.
Since 2024 he has been in Piacenza, in SuperLega. In May 2026 the club announced the extension until 2029: a long contract, the kind a club signs when it has decided to build around you. In the Piacenza shirt he won the CEV Volleyball Cup in 2026.
One detail that matters more than it looks: he went from A2 to SuperLega with no holding pattern in between. Anyone who follows young Italian players knows that jump is where most of them get lost, not where they get found.
His national team career
His run with Italy started in the youth teams and never stopped:
- Gold at the 2022 Under 20 European Championship
- European Youth Olympic Summer Festival 2022
- Silver at the 2023 Under 21 World Championship
- Silver at the 2023 European Championship with the senior national team
- Memorial Hubert Wagner 2023
- Paris 2024 Olympics with Italy
- Called up for the 2026 VNL, all the way to the Ningbo Finals (Italy knocked out in the quarterfinals by the United States)
Put simply: he broke into the senior national team before he turned twenty, and he stayed there.
What it takes physically to play opposite at a high level
The opposite is the position that attacks the most and receives the least. That sounds like an advantage. It is actually the reason it is the most demanding position when it comes to repeatable power.
A starting opposite in SuperLega jumps at the net dozens and dozens of times a match, often on a high ball, often with the block already set. He doesn't need the best jump of his life once: he needs a high jump in the fifth set that looks like the one in the first. That is a different thing, and you train it differently.
The three qualities that actually matter:
- Explosive strength in the lower body. An opposite's approach jump comes from being able to load and release force in hundredths of a second. Without a base of maximal strength built in the weight room, plyometrics on their own take you up to a point and then stall.
- Resistance to explosive fatigue. The number that counts is not your best jump, it is how much that jump drops off after fifty approaches. Train only for the peak and never for repeatability in a match, and you fade in the third set.
- Knee and shoulder durability. The opposite's action loads the knees and the shoulder more than any other position. Strengthening those two joints is not boring injury prevention: it is the condition for being able to train everything else without stopping.
Then there is height. Bovolenta is over two metres tall and that hands him centimetres of reach that no training can give someone who is 185. But reach is the sum of height, arm span and jump. You can't do anything about height. About the jump, you can.
How to measure your jump (before you train it)
The first mistake people make when training to jump like an opposite is starting with the exercises. The right order is different: measure first, then train, then measure again. Without a starting number you don't know whether you are improving or just getting tired.
With the JHP jump test all you need is a two-second video: the height in centimetres is calculated from flight time, it's free, and the analysis runs in your browser, so the video never leaves your device.
From there you pick your route. If you train in the weight room, JHP Gym Edition spends 16 weeks on the strength your jump needs. If you're a hitter and want to work on the movement itself, Spike Revolution is built around the spike. And if your knees bother you after training, Knee Power comes before everything else.
Your next step
How high do you jump today, in centimetres?
If you want to hit over the block like an opposite, the first number you need is your own. Measure it now, so in two months you know whether you actually improved or you're just telling yourself you did.
Measure your jump — free JHP membership — €99/yearIf you train in the weight room: JHP Gym Edition, 16 weeks, €60.
