2020 Olympic Games - Tokyo (Female)

  • In paper korea isn't going to make it

    But let's see what happen with twins


    I like lee soyoung

  • This thread is going to be Americans (North, South, Central) and Asians vs Europeans in about a month :lol::box:

    WE HAVE THE POWER :cup::cup::cup::cup:

  • This thread is going to be Americans (North, South, Central) and Asians vs Europeans in about a month :lol::box:

    It's been a long time, considering the last time that Europeans won an Olympic gold medal. At that time, the Soviet Union still existed, and Russia did not. Then, for more than 30 years, American teams and Asian teams took turns to win Olympic gold medals(3 for CUBA,2 for Brasil,2 for China).

    Europeans always complain about the quota limit of FIVB, which makes their strong team unable to enter the Olympic Games. It's easy for American and Asian teams to get into the Olympics. But considering the winning list of the Olympic Games, the world championships and the world cup in recent years, it is contrary to everyone's impression.

    With the aging of Brazil and the United States, their paper strength is really weaker. Now it seems that the only team that stands in front of the Europeans is the Chinese team. This Olympic Games is really a chance for European team to win gold medal in recent years, but the Olympic Games are always wonderful, anything can happen. No one would have thought that China could reverse Russia in 2004 Athens Olympics. No one believes that in 12 and 16 years, Brazil and China played so badly in the early stage, and finally won the champion.

    It's inevitable for Europeans and Americans and Asians to tear at each other during the Olympic Games, but I'm looking forward to classic games. I can see that in any case, Serbia will play first in group A, because China and Italy are probably the top two in group B. in order to avoid meeting these two teams in the QF, they can only play like this.

  • Europeans always complain about the quota limit of FIVB, which makes their strong team unable to enter the Olympic Games. It's easy for American and Asian teams to get into the Olympics. But considering the winning list of the Olympic Games, the world championships and the world cup in recent years, it is contrary to everyone's impression.

    I've been ripping on Europeans/making fun of their complaining a lot lately, but in their defense, their complaint is not the strong teams (those that have a decent chance at a gold medal) that are unable to reach the olympics, it's the mid-tier teams like Germany, Netherlands, Poland. As we have seen in recent history there is no evidence that Russia has a significant advantage over any of those three.


    Top-level European teams such as Serbia and Italy got to the Olympics just as easily as USA and China did.


    However, considering that Serbia is currently ranked #13 and Italy #9, I'm not sure if they will continue to have such an easy path to the Olympics in 2024 (there is only so much lost ground you can make up for in the other competitions if you do not take VNL seriously) even though I still expect them to be gold medal contenders.

  • Now with the NEW WR system, these mid-tier teams may have chance to better their WR position to improve their odds to attend Olympics. Of course a top-tier team can always grab a spot for itself, despite its actual WR position is understated.


    Now look at the current participants:


    Women's Volleyball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics


    Pool A: Japan (Hosts), Serbia (3), Brazil (4), South Korea (9), Dominican Republic (10), Kenya (19)


    Pool B: China (1), United States (2), Russia (5), Italy (8), Argentina (11), Turkey (12)



    Now, supposed the allocation of the CEV to be expanded, team from WHICH Confederation can be sacrificed to make up the room? (Which one(s) actually does NOT deserve to be here?) And of course if IOC will expand the teams to 14 or even 16, the problem is immediately solved :-)


    Current OG teams:


    CEV - European Confederation: Four teams

    AVC - Asian Confederation: Three teams

    CSV - South American Confederation: Two teams

    NORCECA - North, Central American and Caribbean Confederation: Two teams

    CAVB - African Confederation: One team


    “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

  • It's been a long time, considering the last time that Europeans won an Olympic gold medal. At that time, the Soviet Union still existed, and Russia did not. Then, for more than 30 years, American teams and Asian teams took turns to win Olympic gold medals(3 for CUBA,2 for Brasil,2 for China).

    Europeans always complain about the quota limit of FIVB, which makes their strong team unable to enter the Olympic Games. It's easy for American and Asian teams to get into the Olympics. But considering the winning list of the Olympic Games, the world championships and the world cup in recent years, it is contrary to everyone's impression.

    With the aging of Brazil and the United States, their paper strength is really weaker. Now it seems that the only team that stands in front of the Europeans is the Chinese team. This Olympic Games is really a chance for European team to win gold medal in recent years, but the Olympic Games are always wonderful, anything can happen. No one would have thought that China could reverse Russia in 2004 Athens Olympics. No one believes that in 12 and 16 years, Brazil and China played so badly in the early stage, and finally won the champion.

    It's inevitable for Europeans and Americans and Asians to tear at each other during the Olympic Games, but I'm looking forward to classic games. I can see that in any case, Serbia will play first in group A, because China and Italy are probably the top two in group B. in order to avoid meeting these two teams in the eighth finals, they can only play like this.

    That's not really fair to bring up quota discussion. No one here questioned the slots of BRA, USA and CHN. They all of course well deserve to be in OG. The discussion was mostly why Argentina or THA-KOR are in OG instead of other European teams like NED, POL, BEL, GER etc.


    Medal contenders were from American and Asian continents previously but it is changing drastically nowadays. CUB doesn't exist in volleyball world anymore. BRA is nowhere close to their dominating times. Meanwhile European teams like ITA-SRB and TUR are on the rise. I wouldn't be surprised indeed if both ITA and SRB would get medals this OG.

  • It should be 5 continental slots which should be organized before intercontinental qualification tournaments. After ensuring 5 continent representations + host country, all the rest 6 slots should be open for top teams. In theory it should allow 6 more European teams, I am not saying it will actually happen but the qualification path should allow it. Otherwise certain continents are being punished whereas weak ones are being favored.


    Mostly host team is weak (not in this OG but for example next one), on top of that African team is also weak. Then all the rest of 10 teams should be strongest ones in the world if we call OG as the most prestigious tournament of volleyball.

  • It should be 5 continental slots which should be organized before intercontinental qualification tournaments. After ensuring 5 continent representations + host country, all the rest 6 slots should be open for top teams. In theory it should allow 6 more European teams, I am not saying it will actually happen but the qualification path should allow it. Otherwise certain continents are being punished whereas weak ones are being favored.


    Mostly host team is weak (not in this OG but for example next one), on top of that African team is also weak. Then all the rest of 10 teams should be strongest ones in the world if we call OG as the most prestigious tournament of volleyball.

    we just had the top 24 ranked teams compete for six spots. Then the continents had their tournaments.

    USA, BRA, RUS all had to go five sets in those qualifying tournaments in one match.

    We already had 7 of the top 10 teams get in. We are complaining about why 8&9 didn’t make it. It’s because you couldn’t beat your competition.

    Netherlands couldn’t beat Serbia in 2018 World Championship semifinals. Netherlands couldn’t beat USA IN 3rd place match. Netherlands couldn’t beat China in 2018 World Championships 3rd place match.

    Turkey couldn’t beat China in Qualifying in 2019. Turkey could not win VNL in 2018 & 2019.

    Tournaments are never perfect and there are upsets.
    Olympic ranking points are higher than VNL.

  • that's the biggest problem and where injustice comes from. All continental tournaments should be done first! So probably USA, BRA, CHN, SRB and an African team will qualify. And then all the rest should fight for leftover spots.


    I don't understand what's the point of bringing up old semi results of Netherlands to this discussion:what:

  • That's not really fair to bring up quota discussion. No one here questioned the slots of BRA, USA and CHN. They all of course well deserve to be in OG. The discussion was mostly why Argentina or THA-KOR are in OG instead of other European teams like NED, POL, BEL, GER etc.


    Medal contenders were from American and Asian continents previously but it is changing drastically nowadays. CUB doesn't exist in volleyball world anymore. BRA is nowhere close to their dominating times. Meanwhile European teams like ITA-SRB and TUR are on the rise. I wouldn't be surprised indeed if both ITA and SRB would get medals this OG.

    After the IOQT rounds, the 6 spots that were already allocated besides the host had three in Europe and one each in Asia, North, and South America. There were 5 continental spots left over, and we can't touch the African spot because they need to be represented. So there's three more.


    DR and South Korea are (were) good teams in 2019, I don't think it's entirely unfair that they are included. Of course, they had an easier path than Turkey did.


    Now, Argentina, that's different and I'll agree with you there. So instead of Turkey representing Europe we might have both Turkey and Germany.


    Of course, it is better to do the continental qualifiers first, that is fairer to everyone. In that case then probably it will look something like


    Americas: USA and Brazil

    Europe: one of Serbia or Italy (more likely Serbia)

    Asia: China.


    Then the other teams (DOM, CAN, ARG, ITA, TUR, POL, GER, NED, KOR) can be seeded accordingly and fight it out for the final 6 spots.

  • Women's Volleyball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics


    Pool A: Japan (Hosts), Serbia (3), Brazil (4), South Korea (9), Dominican Republic (10), Kenya (19)


    Pool B: China (1), United States (2), Russia (5), Italy (8), Argentina (11), Turkey (12)

    If we use the current world rankings which get updated every match, we would get


    Pool A: Japan (host, 4), Brazil (3), Turkey (5), Italy (9), Serbia (13), Kenya (24)

    Pool B: USA (1), China (2), Dominican Republic (6), Russia (7), Korea (14), Argentina (16)


    not sure if that is more or less fair tbh

  • I don't think world ranking should be use as a criteria yet. Many team didn't send their A rosters so the ranking doesn't represent real strength of teams. I think after OG and continental championships, world ranking will probably be a more representative of the current powerhouse and then hopefully WCh pools will be more balanced then.

  • I don't think world ranking should be use as a criteria yet. Many team didn't send their A rosters so the ranking doesn't represent real strength of teams. I think after OG and continental championships, world ranking will probably be a more representative of the current powerhouse and then hopefully WCh pools will be more balanced then.

    I did a simulation in a spreadsheet of the Olympics (with the favorites winning/no upsets) and rankings return pretty much to how you'd expect them to almost immediately.


    But that's also counting on teams not flopping (looking at you Italy) or going 5 sets with teams they shouldn't be. (looking at you Italy) :lol::lol: