Both Olympic qualification and group format have been adjusted! How does the Chinese women's volleyball team respond?

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This week, the International Olympic Committee and the FIVB unveiled the qualifying scheme and format for the final stages of the volleyball events at the Paris Olympics. Compared with the Tokyo Olympic Games, the new competition system has also brought new challenges to the Chinese women's volleyball team.

The Paris Olympic volleyball event was contested by 12 teams of men and 12 women. Taking the women's volleyball team as an example, according to the qualification plan released by the International Olympic Committee, 6 of the 12 teams will be determined through the Olympic qualification tournament except for the host France team, and the other 5 teams will be determined according to the world ranking. According to the plan, the top 24 teams in the men's and women's volleyball world rankings can participate in the qualifiers, and the deadline for the world ranking of the men's volleyball program is September 12, 2022, and the women's volleyball event is October 17, 2022. After the qualification team is determined, the top 24 will be divided into three groups, each group of 8 teams, for 7 rounds of intra-group single-round round-robin competition, and finally the top 2 teams in each group, a total of 6 teams will receive tickets to the Paris Olympic Games.

It should be noted that the hosts of the three qualifying groups are teams that qualify for the tournament and will occupy the seeding positions of their respective groups, and the remaining 21 teams are placed in three groups according to the world ranking serpentine arrangement. The men's volleyball qualifiers will be held from September 30 to October 8, 2023, and the women's volleyball qualifiers will be scheduled from September 16 to September 24, 2023. As for the other teams that fail to qualify for the Paris Olympics, they will be allocated the last 5 Olympic qualifications according to the world ranking after the end of the 2024 World Volleyball League race, first to the teams from the continents that did not previously win the seat, and then to the world ranking. The deadline for the world ranking of men's volleyball is June 24, 2024, and the deadline for women's volleyball is June 17, 2024.

Roadmap for qualifying for the Women's Volleyball Tournament at the Tokyo Olympics

It is worth mentioning that the tokyo Olympic volleyball qualification tournament is also divided into two stages, but the difference is that the 24 teams are divided into 6 groups in the first stage, and only the top team in each group of 4 teams can directly reach Tokyo. The remaining five places were reserved for the in-continental tournament, and the five unsuccessful teams from Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and South America qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.

The poster of the FIVB congratulating the Chinese women's volleyball team on its qualification for the Tokyo Olympic Games

In August 2019, the Chinese women's volleyball team defeated the Czech Republic, Turkey and Germany in the first stage of the Olympic qualification match, and got the ticket to the Tokyo Olympic Games at the first time. Compared with the 4-out-of-1 in the Tokyo cycle, the 8-pick 2 in the Paris cycle reduces the likelihood that the strong teams will not qualify for the Olympics in the first place due to grouping up. According to the current situation in the international women's volleyball world, the Chinese women's volleyball team, the American women's volleyball team, and the Brazilian women's volleyball team are not too much of a problem to break through the Olympic qualification tournament, and the European powers are likely to have multiple teams directly obtaining Olympic quotas through the qualification tournament at the same time, and teams from Africa are most likely to be unable to directly obtain places from the Olympic qualification tournament. Therefore, the remaining 5 places based on the world ranking, the so-called "take care of the continent teams that have not won the seat first", are likely to be enjoyed only by the top African teams in the world rankings.

In this way, the remaining 4 places are completely a direct competition in the world rankings, and the European Volleyball League, which has a good team in the past, but has less qualifications, may be the biggest winner of the Olympic qualification adjustment. You know, in the current WORLD RANKINGS, almost half of the top 24 teams in the men's and women's rankings are from Europe. If you want to compare the world rankings, the probability of European teams qualifying for the Olympics is high. Considering that the 2024 Olympic Games will be held in Paris, France, it is not difficult to understand that the qualification policy is tilted towards Europe.

FIVB Adult Women's World Rankings are in the top ten

From the perspective of the Chinese women's volleyball team, it is naturally the first choice to get a place directly through the Olympic qualification tournament, and if it fails to achieve what it wants, then whether the team can surpass other Asian teams in the world ranking is particularly important. Fortunately, the Chinese women's volleyball team currently ranks third in the world, and compared with the Asian powers, it has obvious points advantages, and the Chinese women's volleyball team does not need to worry about every point, which also gives Cai Bin a certain amount of trial and error space, and can be targeted for personnel or tactical tests.

It is also worth noting that in addition to the competition plan of the qualification tournament, the competition rules of the Volleyball event at the Paris Olympic Games have been adjusted accordingly. In the past, 12 teams would be divided into 2 groups of 6 teams, and after 5 rounds of single round robin matches in the group, the top 4 teams in each group, a total of 8 teams could advance to the knockout round. However, in the latest rules of the Paris Olympic Games, 12 teams will be divided into 3 groups of 4 teams, and after only 3 rounds of intra-group single-round robin matches, the top two teams in each group and the 2 best third-place teams can advance to the knockout rounds, followed by the quarter-finals, semi-finals, third-place matches and gold medal matches.

Schematic diagram of the volleyball competition format for the Paris Olympic Games

In the past Olympic volleyball events, the group stage seemed quite chicken, after all, the first and fourth group could enter the top eight, but the eight-in-four game was often regarded as the most critical battle. After the adjustment of the Olympic format, although there are still 8 qualifying places, there are only 3 games in the group stage, which greatly reduces the fault tolerance rate of each team, and the players must come up with good form in the group stage.

Of course, the first thing the Chinese women's volleyball team has to face at the moment is the World Volleyball League, which has an important impact on the team's world ranking. According to the current points rules of the FIVB, the World Volleyball League is the third most important event after the Olympic Games and the World Championships, and even higher than the Olympic Qualification Tournament, the World Cup and the Intercontinental Championships. Therefore, the performance of each team in the World Volleyball League will have an important impact on their ranking.

Point weights in the FIVB World Rankings of each event

According to the latest news, the FIVB has determined that Sofia, Bulgaria, will replace Russia's Ufa to host the women's volleyball tournament of the third week of the World Volleyball League, and the Bulgarian women's volleyball team will also replace the Russian women's volleyball team that was banned due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to play in the World Volleyball League. According to the schedule, the third week of the competition will be held from June 28 to July 3, and the Chinese women's volleyball team will face the Brazilian, Polish, South Korean and Dominican women's volleyball teams respectively. Although there is no change in the opponent, the change of the host city still has a certain impact on the original plan of the Chinese team, after all, the World Volleyball League is related to the world ranking of the team, which in turn affects the grouping of the future Olympic qualification tournament, so for the Chinese women's volleyball team that is looking forward to recreating the glory in the Paris cycle, they need to be fully prepared.