The 2024 Paris Olympics volleyball qualifying competition will start between September and October this year.

The women's volleyball Olympic qualifying competition will be held in China, Japan and Poland from September 16 to 24; the men's volleyball Olympic qualifying competition will be held in China, Japan and Brazil from September 30 to October 8. The specific host city is to be determined.

This means that the Chinese men's volleyball team and the Chinese women's volleyball team will hit the Olympic tickets at home.

At the same time, the Chinese Volleyball Association took the initiative and successfully moved Zhang Jingyin, the core offensive player of the Chinese men's volleyball team, to the Polish Super League, one of the three top leagues in the world. Ting has won her seventh MVP title since joining in the Italian Women's Volleyball League.

　　Chinese women's volleyball team may be in the same group as Brazil and the United States

　　The International Volleyball Federation has reformed the method of generating Olympic qualifications. Instead of determining the seats other than the host country through the world group qualifying competition and the intercontinental qualifying competition, it is changed to a combination of the world group qualifying competition and the world ranking.

Taking the women's volleyball team as an example, a total of 12 teams will participate in the women's volleyball event at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Except for the host French women's volleyball team, the 11 qualifications will be divided into two stages.

The first stage is the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in September, where 6 tickets will be determined; the remaining 5 seats will be allocated according to the world ranking after the 2024 World Women's Volleyball League.

　　A total of 24 teams competed for 6 tickets to the Paris Olympic Games in the Women's Volleyball Olympic Qualifying Tournament in September.

Except for the Chinese women's volleyball team, the Japanese women's volleyball team, and the Polish women's volleyball team who participated as the hosts of the qualifying competition, the remaining 21 teams will be drawn according to the world ranking and the principle of serpentine arrangement.

Including the host, there will be a total of 8 teams in each group to compete in a single cycle. The top two teams in each group will go straight to Paris as soon as possible.

　　Although the FIVB's Olympic qualifying draw ceremony will be held on the 17th of this month, the grouping situation has basically surfaced.

The Chinese women's volleyball team is classified into Group A. The opponents in the same group are likely to be the Brazilian women's volleyball team, the American women's volleyball team, the German women's volleyball team, the Canadian women's volleyball team, the Colombian women's volleyball team, the Mexican women's volleyball team and the Peruvian women's volleyball team.

Group B includes Japan, Italy, Turkey, Netherlands, Thailand, Czech, Argentina and Slovenia.

Group C includes: Poland Women's Volleyball, Serbia Women's Volleyball, Dominican Women's Volleyball, Belgium Women's Volleyball, Bulgaria Women's Volleyball, Puerto Rico Women's Volleyball, South Korea Women's Volleyball and Ukraine Women's Volleyball.

　　Although they have the home advantage in the Olympic qualifying match in September, according to the above grouping situation, the Chinese women's volleyball team must go all out to have a chance to go straight to Paris in the first place, because the Brazilian women's volleyball team and the American women's volleyball team are evenly matched. competitors.

Last year, the new Chinese women's volleyball team did not have the upper hand when they clashed with these two strong teams in the international arena.

In the World Women's Volleyball League held from May to July this year, the Chinese women's volleyball team will also have the opportunity to play against these two teams in sub-stations. This is also the best opportunity for the team to find out their opponents before the Olympic qualifiers.

　　As for the Chinese men's volleyball team, according to the world ranking and the principle of serpentine arrangement, the opponents in the same group are basically determined, including Poland, Iran, Serbia, Ukraine, Germany, Czech and Bulgaria .

In terms of comprehensive strength, the Chinese men's volleyball team is not at the top of the group.

　　Olympic Qualifying Tournament and Hangzhou Asian Games "Back to Back"

　　In the Tokyo Olympic cycle, the Chinese women's volleyball team qualified for the World Group Olympic Qualifying Tournament held in Ningbo Beilun for the first time.

The Chinese men's volleyball team came second in the Asian Olympic Qualifying Tournament held in Jiangmen and missed the Olympics.

This year, although they also sit at home, it is more difficult for both men's and women's volleyball teams than in the previous cycle in terms of the difficulty of obtaining Olympic tickets.

First of all, in terms of the number and strength of opponents, 4 years ago, 4 teams in a group competed for the first place in the group to qualify for the Olympics, but now 8 teams compete for the top two in 7 rounds. Make higher demands.

　　Secondly, in terms of holding time, both the men's and women's volleyball Olympic qualifying matches partially overlap with the Hangzhou Asian Games held from September 23 to October 8, which means that both the Chinese men's and women's volleyball teams will participate in the qualifying matches "back to back". Asian Games.

In the second half of the Chinese women's volleyball team's qualifying round, the Hangzhou Asian Games has opened. Regardless of whether they can successfully compete in the Olympics, the whole team must rush to Hangzhou as soon as possible to fight for the Asian Games gold medal.

Cai Bin, the head coach of the Chinese women's volleyball team, talked about this year's goal before the closed training camp in February, that is, to qualify for the Paris Olympics as soon as possible, and to win gold in the Hangzhou Asian Games.

It is quite a test for the young Chinese women's volleyball team to complete the two competition tasks so seamlessly.

The Chinese men's volleyball team also needs to rotate continuously, but the order of the two competition tasks is exactly the opposite of that of the Chinese women's volleyball team. The men's volleyball team rushed to the Olympic qualifiers non-stop after participating in the Hangzhou Asian Games.

　　Chinese men's and women's volleyball team

　　"Sparkle" in the European arena

　　At present, the Chinese men's volleyball team and the Chinese women's volleyball team are conducting closed training sessions in Zhangzhou, Fujian and Beilun, Ningbo, Zhejiang respectively.

It is worth mentioning that there are Guangdong athletes selected in the training list of the two national brands. The men's volleyball team has Wang Hebin and Chen Jiajie; the women's volleyball team has Wang Yifan.

　　Several main players of the men's volleyball team were temporarily absent from the training camp due to playing abroad, including the 23-year-old offensive core Zhang Jingyin.

Under the operation of the Chinese Volleyball Association, Zhang Jingyin successfully went abroad and joined the Polish Super League, one of the three top leagues in the world men's volleyball team.

In February this year, Zhang Jingyin wore the No. 22 jersey to play for the Gdansk club in the middle of the league.

On March 3, the Gdansk men's volleyball team won 3-1 in the 26th round of the league. Zhang Jingyin came off the bench and scored 24 points, winning a single game MVP for the first time.

In yesterday's game, he played 5 innings as a substitute and contributed a total of 18 points.

Zhang Jingyin said that he has gained a lot after joining the Gdansk Men's Volleyball Club, especially improving his first pass ability.

Zhang Jingyin plans to return to China in May. At that time, he will return to the Chinese men's volleyball team to prepare for the World Men's Volleyball League.

　　In the 22nd round of Serie A held yesterday, the former Chinese women's volleyball team's main player Zhu Ting's Scandic Women's Volleyball Club won ten consecutive victories, and Zhu Ting, who contributed 15 points, was elected as the MVP of the single game.

Before joining Serie A, Zhu Ting was already a well-known MVP "harvester" in the world volleyball.

In October last year, Zhu Ting joined the Scandic Women's Volleyball Club. The cooperation period between the two parties is one season.

After the start of the season, Zhu Ting won the league single-game MVP three times; while representing the club in the Europa League, she won two more MVP titles.

Zhu Ting was also selected as the Serie A monthly MVP in December last year.

Therefore, the single-game MVP she won yesterday is already her seventh MVP title since joining Serie A.

(Yang Min)

　　(Source: Guangzhou Daily, Page 12, March 10, 2023)