Olympic Games - 2016 | 8 | 6

Quote from ossubtus

this was such an unsettled tournament until the end. unlike 2008 and 2012 , there was not a strong favorite, and the champion even finished 4th in its pool. and when did we ever have 4 semifinalists all from one pool? i think any of SRB, US, BRA and CHN could have won, but congrats to CHN. i wish SRB had controlled their nerves better, and their serving, passing and setting had gone better. they'd have been able to set the middle more and relieve brankica and boskovic. those two alone can't carry the team.

i was on the fence a lot about kiraly, but now i think he's really just not that good a coach. what a waste of some of the best players in the world! I don't mean destiny; he still had some great players, but he can't give them much direction or technical insight, it seems.

Brazil finished in 4th in Group Play in London ..

Quote from tomen

I just have a question:
What did Brakocevic say after she was replaced?
She looked very angry.
because injured Ognjenovic was in and Mihailovic was out?

I dont know what she said. But I think she was just giving Maja motivation like " Let's go" we can do this" But that was a bad move for Terzic to take them out...the sub was working, Busa scored, Vejlokivc scored, Malesevic scored.and they tied..China was not ready for that sub, then Maja and Mihajlovic comes back in and goes back to the "same" game and China wins..

Olympic Dream Team Roster

MVP : Zhu Ting (China)
Best Opposite: Sloetjes (Netherlands)
Best Outside hitter: Zhu Ting (China), Mihajlovic (Serbia)
Best Middle Blocker: Rasic (Serbia), Akinradewo (USA)
Best Setter: A. Glass (USA)
Best libero: Lin Li (China)

[quote='rbdfabio',
Brazil finished in 4th in Group Play in London ...

yes, i know that, but BRA was one of two heavy favorites then, which is not the case today.

Quote from ossubtus

this was such an unsettled tournament until the end. unlike 2008 and 2012 , there was not a strong favorite, and the champion even finished 4th in its pool. and when did we ever have 4 semifinalists all from one pool? i think any of SRB, US, BRA and CHN could have won, but congrats to CHN. i wish SRB had controlled their nerves better, and their serving, passing and setting had gone better. they'd have been able to set the middle more and relieve brankica and boskovic. those two alone can't carry the team.

i was on the fence a lot about kiraly, but now i think he's really just not that good a coach. what a waste of some of the best players in the world! I don't mean destiny; he still had some great players, but he can't give them much direction or technical insight, it seems.

sometimes it's just luck. a lot of things went right for china. usa got unlucky with akin's injury. i'd still take usa over china over a 7-game series.

btw, there're lots of off-court factors as well. for example, as far as i know all chinese players are single. they could focus on the game 100%. maybe that's why lang ping can get more out of the chinese players than she did with us players. the same can't be said with usa or serbia. lots of usa/serbia players are married and have kids even. they got more commitments in life. this has huge impact on their preparation.

Quote from lche059

sometimes it's just luck. a lot of things went right for china. usa got unlucky with akin's injury. i'd still take usa over china over a 7-game series.

And China was lucky by what for winning the WOrld Cup last year? Serbia Silver and USA still bronze....was Akin injured in the WOrld Cup also

Brazil and USA only made to the GP final, because they were lucky CHina and Serbia did not play....

Plus in the World CHampionship USA got lucky that YuNlin XU got injured and did not play the final...otherwise China woud have won

about what I said about kiraly:

in contrast, ZRG, someone i hate because of his constant screaming and bitching at referees and players, at least he's telling his players all the time what to correct, what to do differently. sometimes it's too much, because it's too much information or too much nitpicking is not helpful to the players, but at least he's giving them something other than an inspirational speech like karch.

DOes anybody speaks or understands Chinese? What does Lang Ping says during time outs??//

Lang Ping is a very confident women and she acts like that when she`s sitting on that bench, and she gives the players this confidence for sure...
Plus she never gets upset with anybody. She shows respect with the players.

Not entirely true. One example is that Wei Qiuyue is supposed to get engaged soon after the Olympics.
Shen Jingsi is married. Zeng Chunlei has a long time boyfriend. Yang Junjing has had a long time relationship but just broke up with her boyfriend, who is a Chinese male volleyball payer. (though none of them made it to Rio).
The other players are either too young (in the ideas of Chinese) or preferring to keep their private lives private.
I get it that you are trying to emphasize that Chinese girls have been training like crazy, which is true, but still nothing to do with the relationship thing.

Quote from lche059

btw, there're lots of off-court factors as well. for example, as far as i know all chinese players are single. they could focus on the game 100%. maybe that's why lang ping can get more out of the chinese players than she did with us players. the same can't be said with usa or serbia. lots of usa/serbia players are married and have kids even. they got more commitments in life. this has huge impact on their preparation.

Quote from rbdfabio

And China was lucky by what for winning the WOrld Cup last year? Serbia Silver and USA still bronze....was Akin injured in the WOrld Cup also

Brazil and USA only made to the GP final, because they were lucky CHina and Serbia did not play....

brazil didn't play in the world cup. and usa came out on top in wch.
all i'm saying is china wasn't that much better than the other contenders. they didn't have much better odds.

She was extremely specific, not only saying "take a deep breath", but she would also consoling the girls when the opponents were doing better.

Quote from rbdfabio

DOes anybody speaks or understands Chinese? What does Lang Ping says during time outs??//

Lang Ping is a very confident women and she acts like that when she`s sitting on that bench, and she gives the players this confidence for sure...
Plus she never gets upset with anybody. She shows respect with the players.

Quote from arrekusu

Not entirely true. One example is that Wei Qiuyue is supposed to get engaged soon after the Olympics.
Shen Jingsi is married. Zeng Chunlei has a long time boyfriend. Yang Junjing has had a long time relationship but just broke up with her boyfriend, who is a Chinese male volleyball payer. (though none of them made it to Rio).
The other players are either too young (in the ideas of Chinese) or preferring to keep their private lives private.
I get it that you are trying to emphasize that Chinese girls have been training like crazy, which is true, but still nothing to do with the relationship thing.

meagan easy has her baby in usa training facility all the time. serbian players spent time on the beach with their partners. russian sherban and malyk took holiday in port of miami. you can find these all over internet. even Kim took some time off in guam. all these while, chinese players busted their asses off in the gym. i know how important olympics are to the chinese so they will put everything else in their personal life on hold. and i believe this is the advantage lang ping didn't have with the usa team.

i love Maracarnazinho!!! China got the 3rd Olympic gold medal here....equalised the record of three gold medal that Cuba team did.
China Womens Volleyball shows the spirit of team mettle and inspires the world.

from the tactical saying, we all know Serbia holds at least 3 strong powers (Miha + Ras + Bos) over net. China needs to watch carefully of the three and try to demolish one or two of them. in the end, it worked out and Mihajlovic was the first one to be replaced, this is good news to China. and then, China could devoted more focus on the defense and counter-attack efficiency.

China is so different today, the serve and defence were kept in high level....the teamwork and the determination of the gold can explain everything maybe.

[quote='lche059','all i'm saying is china wasn't that much better than the other contenders. they didn't have much better o[/quote]

COming to these OG we all knew BRA,CHN,SRB,USA,RUS were favorites for GOLD, and NED,ITA even JAP and KOR could surprise.

and should be a good thing CHN was not much better than everybody else. DO you want volleyball to be like Basketball? Only one team playing for gold and everybody else for Silver and Bronze? and having the same team winning 6 Olympics in a row?

in 2008 Brazil was 100000 times better than everybody else...and that was AMAZING to watch, but for one Olympic only....if every Olympic we had a Brazil like in 2008, the Olympics would suck and would turn boring just like Baskteball.

i don't know, i never thought RUS (or NED for that matter) would play for gold.

China is very lucky to have such good coach of Lang Ping.
i admit that China young ladies are not genius in physical condition and still need the promotion in many technical aspects.
but the coach Lang Ping changes the individuals as a team holding a strong confidence of wins.
The gold medal does not belong to the individual players, but to the strong backstage support and the good interaction between the coach and players.

Quote from ossubtus

i was on the fence a lot about kiraly, but now i think he's really just not that good a coach. what a waste of some of the best players in the world! I don't mean destiny; he still had some great players, but he can't give them much direction or technical insight, it seems.

It's hard to be a USA coach and Kiraly certainly has both supporters and detractors. I, too, would have preferred more technical advice during timeouts instead of motivational phrases.

I think being an assistant to Hugh Mccutcheon in the previous quad influenced Kiraly's timeout style. However, Mccutcheon was a much better speaker whereas Kiraly often comes across as awkward and repetitive.

Compared to other previous USA coaches, Kiraly's not a great tactician and doesn't excel in making in-game subs changes like Lang Ping. Neither is he a big technical coach like Yoshida was. He's also not as skilled in managing players like McCutcheon did.

Given Kiraly's limits and inexperience, he implemented a specific system and culture that he can coach comfortably. Then he fit players into the system rather than build a system based on his athlete's strengths and different personalities. He bet that this system would be good enough to take Olympic Gold. Unfortunately it failed, despite having quality players.

Is he a good coach? At times he can be, but highly situational. I think you put him to coach a professional team overseas and he'll have many problems...

With USA NT, Karch had mixed results. Olympic Bronze is a disappointment. But WCH Gold will shield him for a while...

Quote from lche059

meagan easy has her baby in usa training facility all the time. serbian players spent time on the beach with their partners. russian sherban and malyk took holiday in port of miami. you can find these all over internet. even Kim took some time off in guam. all these while, chinese players busted their asses off in the gym. i know how important olympics are to the chinese so they will put everything else in their personal life on hold. and i believe this is the advantage lang ping didn't have with the usa team.

Not exactly true, the reputation of Olympic Champion is meaningful to every professional volleyball player. However, no one can easily get it without efforts. Frankly speaking, girls of team China sacrificed a lot in past several years. But I believe all these sweaters and tears worth when they finally got this gold metal.
And for now, it's time for girls to have a happy time with their families, lovers and friends. Again congrats to Chinese Female Volleyball Team.

Congratulations to CHN! Especially Zhu Ting, she is a phenomenal player

3 of olympic dream team will play in Vakıfbank next season, Zhu, Sloetjes and Rasic