China NT 2021

Yuan Xinyue’s Birthday wishes ....

Yao Di is hopeless. She did perform well during VNL final 2019 when they beat Italy and won bronze. Last year she was subbed out almost every match during the league final series. They managed to win with an ugly performance from two setters. Good setters are really hard to find in the nation of 1.4 billion people.

Well, 2020 has been tough on everyone......Hope 2021 will be a happier, safer year and please, please let’s have the Olympic Games 🙂

Can't blame the setter if Chinese trainers are limiting their options to women with height of 5'11" and above.

Even if you have 700 million people to choose from, it's still much lower than you'll get anywhere else with wider height selections for a particular position.

As much as I am a fan of a tall setter, you would sometimes think if CVL is becoming too extreme with the setter limitations on height.

Watched that movie "Leap" last night. I guess I wasn't aware the current NT members were going to actually act in the movie. It's a Hoo-Hah Chinese film but it's a great story. It was my introduction to volleyball, too. I remember the people I was with at the time telling me the story but because I had no context, or real interest at the time, it didn't stick. Lang Ping is like Bruce Bochy was the closest I got.

There are a lots of "inside jokes" that are really pleasing. Zhang Changning getting a serve time violation, Yuan Xinyue patting Xu Yunli on the butt, Ding Xia telling Yuan she should learn to scream her head off. And there's Zeng Chunlei's Oscar caliber performance when Lang Ping tells her she why she's not going to Rio.

Quote from zhutingfan

Zeng Chunlei is so unlucky. She had a great performance in the 2015 world cup and 2017 grand champions cup. 2016 was just not her year and it had to be the year of the Olympics......

And after 2017-18 her form just dropped completely and Gong Xiangyu got better.

have you seen the movie?

Quote from zhutingfan

No I haven't, I heard that it twisted the narrative of reality and did not portray many individuals kindly.... so I didn't watch it

Yeah, I think that's about the earlier generation players. They don't even get names except for Lang Ping (who's played by Lang Ping's daughter!). You could just skip the first hour. You wouldn't miss anything. Once Gong Li and her uber-presence shows up it's pretty fun.

Since you probably won't watch it I'll give you the spoiler on Zeng, which they build a narrative point around. Ping tells her she's "played too well, other teams have sussed her out". Then in the match against Brazil when Ping subs in Liu Xiaotong, Brazil is all "who is this? We don't have any intel on her" and Xiaotong is a "relentless surprise" who "destroys Brazil's approach". "Lang Ping works her magic again".

The main gist of the film, I think, is the evolution from "for your country" to (Lang Ping's) "for the love of volleyball".

As an aside, one moment I enjoyed is when Lang Ping is in front of the vb overlords (or whatever) and says she has three reforms she's going to share. Right as she hits the button to start her powerpoint presentation there's this thing, it might be her mouse, that says YOGA, very prominently on the screen.

where do you guys watch it online?

I've just finished the movie, thanks to sitenoise

I've enjoyed the movie indeed. It is a legendary career that deserves to be heard by many people.

I'm curious about which player left the team because 'she doesn't love volleyball'

I've realized I've been pronouncing all the Chinese players' names wrong, I've learnt the right versions while Lang Ping was announcing the Olympic squad.

I'm not convinced by the explanation of Lang about excluding Zeng Chunlei from Olympic roster. You were playing so good is such a lame excuse. She should have excluded Zhu Ting as well with the same logic because she was already playing soooo good too.

It was funny to see Xia Ding was making fun of Zhang's neverending service routine

Zeng Chunlei was left off the Rio roster because she was playing poorly during WGP. She thought she was secured of the spot but her performance was really bad. One game she hit the antenna twice which was unacceptable at this level. Past performance didn't mean anything. If you have been following Lang Ping, she does not give seniority for anyone. She cleaned half the London roster after Asian Championships failure and built a new team around Zhu. The Rio roster had 3 vets from London, all had injuries to deal with. Winning gold was closed to a miracle.

Quote from serdar

I'm curious about which player left the team because 'she doesn't love volleyball'

I've realized I've been pronouncing all the Chinese players' names wrong, I've learnt the right versions while Lang Ping was announcing the Olympic squad.

I'm not convinced by the explanation of Lang about excluding Zeng Chunlei from Olympic roster. You were playing so good is such a lame excuse. She should have excluded Zhu Ting as well with the same logic because she was already playing soooo good too.

It was funny to see Xia Ding was making fun of Zhang's neverending service routine

I'm also very curious about who doesn't love volleyball. Was it just a narrative device for the movie or was there a player who actually did that?

Same question about Zeng Chunlei. Was that real, or contrived for the movie (and maybe Chunlei's peace of mind)?

Ding Xia is a riot. Always makes me think of Joe Pesci

Quote from jetmasters

Zeng Chunlei was left off the Rio roster because she was playing poorly during WGP

Did Lang Ping ever say that, or is that just what everybody thinks happened?

Not that I think what she said in the movie is necessarily true, especially since it was obviously part of a narrative move (the Xiaotong bit).

I didn't watch the movie, but that's definitely part of the narrative for the movie. lol

We all know that she got left out because she wasn't in her best shape at that time.

Fun fact: Lang Ping's younger self is played by her daughter. She used to play in NCAA, but decided not to pursue a professional volleyball career.