Volleyball at the Summer Olympics: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:36, 6 July 2006

Volleyball Olympic Tournament refers to the indoor volleyball events played at the Olympic Games. Indoor volleyball became an olympic sport in 1964.

History

Origins

Volleyball was for the first time played in the Olympic Games in 1927, as part of an American sports demonstration event. Consideration of its addition to the Olympic programme, however, was given only after World War II, with the foundation of the FIVB and of some of the continental confederations. In 1957, a special tournament was held at the 53rd IOC session in Sofia, Bulgaria to support such request. The competition was a success, and the sport was officially introduced in 1964.

The expression "Volleyball Olympic Tournament" is actually misleading. Properly speaking, volleyball events in the Olympic Games are not limited to indoor volleyball, but also include beach volleyball. Nevertheless, the usage had already been consolidated by the time this sport was added to the Olympic programme (1996). To avoid confusion, beach volleyball events are often referred to as the "Beach Volleyball Olympic Tournament".

The Volleyball Olympic Tournament was originally a simple competition, whose format paralleled the one still employed in the World Cup: all teams played against each other team and then were ranked by wins, set average and point average. One disadvantage of this round-robin system is that medal winners could be determined before the end of the games, making the audience lose interest in the outcome of the remaining matches.

To cope with this situation, the competition was split into two phases: a "final round" was introduced, consisting of quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. Since its creation in 1972, this new system has become the standard for the Volleyball Olympic Tournament, and is usually referred to as the "Olympic format".

The number of teams involved in the games has grown steadily since 1964. Since 1996, both men's and women's events count 12 participant nations. Each of the five continental volleyball confederations has at least one affiliated national federation involved in the Olympic Games.

Winners (Men)

The first two editions of the Volleyball Olympic Tournament were won by the U.S.S.R.. Third in 1964 and runner-up in 1968, Japan finally made it to the gold in 1972. In 1976, the introduction of a new offensive skill, the backrow attack, allowed Poland to win the competition over the Soviets in a very tight five-setter.

Since, in 1980, the strongest teams in men's volleyball belonged to the Eastern Bloc, the American boycott of the Moskow Games did not have as great an effect on these events as it had on the women's. The U.S.S.R. collected their third Olympic Gold Medal with a 3-1 victory over Bulgaria.

With a now U.S.S.R.-led boycott in 1984, U.S.A. confirmed their new volleyball leadership in the Western World by sweeping smoothly over underranked Brazil at the finals. In that edition a minor nation, Italy, won its first medal, but still it had to wait some years to rise to prominence in volleyball world.

The final confrontation between the western and eastern volleyball leaders came in 1988: powerplayers Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons pushed the U.S.A. to a second gold medal setting the issue in favor of the Americans.

In 1992, an underranked Brazil upset all-time favorites C.I.S., Netherlands and mainly Italy for a first Olympic Chamionship. Runner-ups, Ron Zwerver and Olof van der Meulen's Netherlands came back in the following edition for a thrilling five-set win, again over Italy. In spite in their almost whole rule in all other competitions, a sort of curse seem to struck Italians volleyball players at the Olympics. Bronze in 1996, Vladimir and Nikola Grbic's Serbia and Montenegro (in 1996 and 2000 played under the name Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) beat Russia at the finals in 2000 to secure the Gold.

In 2004, Brazil did not disappoint its fans beating mercilessly Italy in the final, adding a second Gold Medal to its record and confirming its role of greatest superpower of 2000s.

Gold Medals seem more evenly distributed in men's volleyball than in women's: former U.S.S.R. has three; U.S.A. and Brazil, two; the remaining four editions of the Volleyball Olympic Tournament were won each by a different country. The remaining main major force, Italy, is runner-up to U.S.S.R. as total number of medals, but still lacks a gold medal.

Winners (Women)

The opening edition of the Volleyball Olympic Tournament, in 1964, was won by Japan, the host nation. There followed two victories in a row by the U.S.S.R., in 1968 and 1972. Japan came back again in 1976 for one last Olympic gold before losing the status of volleyball superpower.

The American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics left many strong volleyball nations like Japan and South Korea out of the games. As a result, the U.S.S.R. secured third olympic gold medal with no difficulty whatsoever.

In 1984, the Eastern bloc was by its turn boycotting the games, and once more many strong volleyball nations like the U.S.S.R., East Germany and Cuba did not participate. In spite of this, and much to the distress of local fans, host nation U.S.A. lost the finals in straight sets to a communist nation, China. With eastern and western nations again involved in the Olympics, the U.S.S.R. obtained a remarkable victory over Peru after trailing 0-2 in the 1988's finals.

1992 saw a new force go down in Olympic history: organized under the name C.I.S., the remnants of former U.S.S.R. went as far as the finals, but did not resist the power play of the young, rising Cuban squad. Led by superstars Myreia Luis and Regla Torres, Cuba would eventually set the record for consecutive wins in the Olympic Games by also taking the gold in 1996 and 2000.

In 2004, the winner was once again China. The eleven editions of the Volleyball Olympic Tournament were won by four different teams only: U.S.S.R., Cuba, China and Japan.

Competition Formula

The Volleyball Olympic Tournament has a very stable competition formula. The following rules apply:

Twelve teams participate in each event.
Host nations are always pre-qualified.
Three teams qualify through the World Cup.
Five teams qualify as winners of Contintental Qualification Tournaments.
The three remaining berths are decided in World Qualification Tournaments.
The competition has two phases.
For the first phase, called qualification round, teams are ranked by the FIVB World Rankings and then divided in two pools of six teams using the serpentine system. The host nation is always ranked 1.
At the qualification round, each team plays one match against all other teams in its pool. Top four teams in each pool advance, the remaining two leave the competition.
At the second phase, usually called final round, teams play quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.
For the final round, matches are organized according to the results obtained in the qualification round. Let the top four teams in each pool be A1, A2, A3, A3; B1, B2, B3, B4. Quarterfinals would then be: A1xB4; A2xB3; A3xB2; A4xB1.
Winners of quarterfinals play semifinals as follows: (A1/B4) x (A3/B2); (A2/B3) x (A4xB1).
At the finals, winners of semifinals play for the gold, and losers for the bronze.
The tournament implements very tight line-up restrictions: only twelve players are allowed, and no replacement is permited, even in case of injuries.

Winners Summary

See also Detailed Palmares

Volleyball Men's Olympic Tournament
Year	Host	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1964	Tokyo, Japan	U.S.S.R.	Czechoslovakia	Japan
1968	Mexico City, Mexico	U.S.S.R.	Japan	Czechoslovakia
1972	Munich, Germany	Japan	East Germany	U.S.S.R.
1976	Montreal, Canada	Poland	U.S.S.R.	Cuba
1980	Moscow, U.S.S.R.	U.S.S.R.	Bulgaria	Romania
1984	Los Angeles, U.S.A.	U.S.A.	Brazil	Italy
1988	Seoul, South Korea	U.S.A.	U.S.S.R.	Argentina
1992	Barcelona, Spain	Brazil	Netherlands	U.S.A.
1996	Atlanta, U.S.A.	Netherlands	Italy	Yugoslavia
2000	Sydney, Australia	Yugoslavia	Russia	Italy
2004	Athens, Greece	Brazil	Italy	Russia

Volleyball Women's Olympic Tournament
Year	Host	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1964	Tokyo, Japan	Japan	U.S.S.R.	Poland
1968	Mexico City, Mexico	U.S.S.R.	Japan	Poland
1972	Munich, Germany	U.S.S.R.	Japan	North Korea
1976	Montreal, Canada	Japan	U.S.S.R.	South Korea
1980	Moscow, U.S.S.R.	U.S.S.R.	East Germany	Bulgaria
1984	Los Angeles, U.S.A.	China	U.S.A.	Japan
1988	Seoul, South Korea	U.S.S.R.	Peru	China
1992	Barcelona, Spain	Cuba	Unified Team	U.S.A.
1996	Atlanta, U.S.A.	Cuba	China	Brazil
2000	Sydney, Australia	Cuba	Russia	Brazil
2004	Athens, Greece	China	Russia	Cuba

Medals summary - Men

Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
U.S.S.R.	3	2	1	6
Brazil	2	1	0	3
U.S.A.	2	0	1	3
Japan	1	1	1	3
Netherlands	1	1	0	2
Yugoslavia	1	0	1	2
Poland	1	0	0	1
Italy	0	2	2	4
Russia	0	1	1	2
Czechoslovakia	0	1	1	2
Bulgaria	0	1	0	1
East Germany	0	1	0	1
Argentina	0	0	1	1
Romania	0	0	1	1
Cuba	0	0	1	1

Medals summary - Women

Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
U.S.S.R.	4	2	0	6
Cuba	3	0	1	4
Japan	2	2	1	5
China	2	1	1	4
Russia	0	2	0	2
U.S.A.	0	1	1	2
Peru	0	1	0	1
Unified Team	0	1	0	1
East Germany	0	1	0	1
Brazil	0	0	2	2
Poland	0	0	2	2
Bulgaria	0	0	1	1
North Korea	0	0	1	1
South Korea	0	0	1	1

External links