The History of the EVS
In 1990 the European Volleyball Tournament for Statisticians (EVS) was originated by some statisticians who were enthusiastic about volleyball in Voorburg in the Netherlands.
The idea was simple. “All statisticians from all over Europe meet for a comparative volleyball competition”. Besides fun in the game and comparisons of the profession and working world one essential element of this tournament should be an understanding and tolerance for the different cultures.
The organisers of the first tournament established the headquarters of the EVS community in Voorborg (since 2003 in Heerlen). The unceasing effort and engagement of the headquarters led to a steady growing EVS community in the course of the years. We’d like to mention here that economically weaker countries could be partly supported to enable them to take part in the tournaments. The headquarters remains the central point of the EVS community. It is the point of contact for questions concerning the organisation and provides help for the performance of EVS tournaments.
At first eleven representatives of different countries took part in the tournament. In the meantime the number of the participating countries increased to 22 countries and the number of participants increased to 300 persons. During the early years single tournaments were played in the categories Men’s, Women’s and Mixed teams. By now the mixed system with at least two female participants of each team has been accepted. Since 2003 the European Championship has to be played within two classes (A- and B-Tournament).
As this event has become very popular the rule that only statisticians can take part in this tournament was relaxed within the last years. Meanwhile other participants from different part of the public administration are always welcome.
The previous EVS tournaments were organised in the following towns:
| Year | Place | countries / teams / players | www |
| 1990 | Voorburg (Netherlands) | 11 / 19 / 192 |  |
| 1991 | Luxemburg | 11 / 20 / 205 | |
| 1992 | Lisboa (Portugal) | 9 / 19 / 191 | |
| 1993 | Copenhagen (Denmark) | 12 / 26 / 244 | |
| 1994 | Paris (France) | 15 / 38 / 297 | |
| 1995 | Stockholm (Sweden) | 13 / 28 / 255 | |
| 1996 | Budapest (Hungary) | 14 / 29 / 269 | |
| 1997 | Warszawa (Poland) | 14 / 29 / 240 | |
| 1998 | Bratislava (Slovakia) | 15 / 31 / 252 | |
| 1999 | Maastricht (Netherlands) | 20 / 42 / 368 | |
| 2000 | Neuchatel (Switzerland) | 18 / 36 / 306 | |
| 2001 | Tallinn (Estonia) | 18 / 32 / 269 | |
| 2002 | Tavira (Portugal) | 16 / 27 / 252 | |
| 2003 | Düsseldorf/Ratingen (Germany) | 16 / 31 / 288 | http://www.evs2003.de/ |
| 2004 | Helsinki (Finland) | 19 / 35 / 305 | http://www.stat.fi/tiku/lentis/evs2004/finally.html |
| 2005 | Paris (France) | 19 / 32 / 283 | |
| 2006 | Hradec Kralove (Czech Republic) | 18 / 34 / 304 | http://www.evs.czso.cz/evs/index.html |
| 2007 | Örebro (Sweden) | 18 / 33 / 270 | |
| 2008 | Poprad (Slovakia) | 18 / 27 / 239 | http://www.statistics.sk/evs/index.html |
| 2009 | Den Haag (Netherlands) | 19 / 33 / 276 | |
| 2010 | Dresden (Germany) | 22 / 36 / 292 | http://www.evs2010.de/ |
| 2011 | Carcavelos (Portugal) | 21 / 40 / 312 | http://evs2011.ine.pt/ |
| 2012 | Spala (Poland) | |
http://www.evs2012.pl/ |
| 2013 | Liberec (Czech Rebpulic) | |
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