On March 18, Beijing time, the results of the 2022 Women's Volleyball World Championship draw group were officially released.
The Chinese women's volleyball team has a good overall lottery, and is divided into Group D with the Brazilian women's volleyball team, the Japanese women's volleyball team, the Colombian women's volleyball team, the Argentine women's volleyball team and the Czech women's volleyball team. The opponents in the half of the region are also the Italian women's volleyball team and the Dutch women's volleyball team, and the Chinese women's volleyball team will compete in the group stage in Arnhem, the Netherlands.
This World Championship is one of the first three major competitions of the Chinese women's volleyball team in the Olympic cycle in Paris, and what kind of results it finally achieves is highly anticipated by the majority of fans.
At the last World Championships, the Chinese women's volleyball team won the bronze medal, after four years, under the leadership of coach Cai Bin, can they sweep away the nightmare of the Tokyo Olympics and play a beautiful turnaround battle? In addition, the recovery of women's ranking generals Zhu Ting and Zhang Changning from injuries is also touching. And which new people will emerge in the new cycle will also be the focus of people's attention.
The contest is the first exam of the new cycle
The Tokyo Olympics became the curtain performance of the Chinese women's volleyball team "Lang Ping Era", and in Lang Ping's farewell battle, the team failed to achieve the desired result, and the group stage was eliminated. After ending the Olympic Games with the ninth place, the Chinese women's volleyball team entered a new cycle of preparation - after a long period of coach selection process, the former Jiangsu women's volleyball coach Cai Bin became the new head coach of the team, and the team also began a new journey. The Women's Volleyball World Championships held in the Netherlands and Poland from September 23 to October 15 this year will be the first three major competition tasks of the Chinese women's volleyball team in the new cycle, and will also be the most important event led by the new coach Cai Bin this year.
According to the results of the group draw, the Chinese women's volleyball team and Brazil, Japan, Colombia, Argentina and the Czech Republic are jointly divided into Group D. Because the schedule stipulates that as long as you achieve the top four in the group, you can qualify for the round of 16, which is a difficult goal for the Chinese women's volleyball team. In addition, according to the format, the Chinese women's volleyball team in Group D will encounter the Team A in the Round of 16, which means that before entering the Top 8, the Chinese Women's Volleyball Team will not be too early to meet the American Women's Volleyball Team, the champion of the Tokyo Olympic Games in Group C. But for the Chinese women's volleyball team, the opponent is of course not only the United States women's volleyball team, the Tokyo Olympic runner-up Brazilian women's volleyball team, as well as Italy, Turkey and other teams will still be a strong test for the team to face.
Can Zhu Ting and Zhang Changning return with full blood?
Although the performance in the Tokyo Olympic Games was not good, the women's volleyball team entered the cycle of replacement, but the strength of the Chinese women's volleyball team still exists, especially Zhu Ting, Zhang Changning, a group of Mesozoic players, is the backbone of the current team. But both of them have a common problem, and that is the problem of injury recovery.
Zhang Changning underwent knee surgery on November 25 last year, an injury that existed for many years before the Tokyo Olympics, but Zhang Changning has been insisting on it for the Olympics. After the Olympics, she used this time to carry out surgery and rehabilitation, and subsequently missed the Volleyball Super League. At the same time, Zhang Changning also announced on social media that he would hold a wedding in June. Previously, she had been married to CBA player Wu Guanxi as early as 2018, but because of the busy training game, she had not held a wedding, and this time it was also a "make-up" time. In terms of time period, Zhang Changning's participation in this year's World Championships should not be too much of a problem, but whether to participate in the women's volleyball national league that began in June may have to be marked with a question mark.
For Zhu Ting, another core player in the squad, the task of recovering from injuries is heavier. At the Tokyo Olympic Games, Zhu Ting greatly affected her play because of her wrist injury, and later due to the epidemic situation, the time for overseas surgery was also postponed, coupled with the need for recovery time after surgery, whether she could make a comeback in this year's international competitions is still difficult to determine.
Discovering new people will be an important task
On February 17 this year, the Chinese women's volleyball training camp opened a training camp in Beilun, Ningbo, which was the first training camp after Cai Bin took office. Cai Bin previously introduced that after the start of the training camp, we must first pay attention to discipline, management, ideology, and physical fitness, and the training camp adopts a semi-military management method and has strict rules for entering the camp. During the training camp, the coaching team will also arrange individual technical training.
Although Zhu Ting and Zhang Changning entered the list, they did not participate in the end due to their actual conditions. However, the vision and determination of the two players for the new cycle have not changed, and Zhu Ting has previously made it clear: "Preparing to play two more Olympic Games is my expectation of myself and an attitude as a professional athlete." If conditions permit, I am willing to continue to fight, and I am willing to work hard for this goal. "In the case of the backbone players full of morale, the new cycle to find new people will be an important task for Cai Bin, for example, in the training camp, Cai Bin recruited a large number of potential newcomers who have a good performance in the league to reserve the lineup update.
In 2022, in addition to the World Championships, the Chinese women's volleyball team has many competition tasks, such as the Hangzhou Asian Games that opened on September 10, such as the Women's Volleyball Asian Cup that began in the Philippines on August 21, and the Women's Volleyball National League that began in June. Therefore, the Chinese women's volleyball team is bound to strive for the world championship while sending different teams to exercise in different competitions. For the newcomers to the team, these events will be the stage for them to strive to rise to the top and win the favor of the coaching staff.
Of course, the games have to be played one by one, and the format of the World Championships is slightly complicated, and the requirements for the team's lineup and physical fitness are relatively high. After Cai Bin took over Lang Ping's coaching of the Chinese women's volleyball team, what kind of changes he can bring to the team, and even whether he can win at the World Championships, are worth looking forward to.
Source: The Paper, Subspecial News