Volleyball…Beijing 2008

Day 1 of the NORCECA Qualifcation Tournament is over.Cuba beat Canada 25-20, 25-23, 25-23

Mexico beat Trinidad & Tobago 25-12, 25-14, 25-15

FIVB has a press release about the NORCECA Qualification round starting today.

Cuba’s chances of making the Olympics fell short last month in Japan when its women team finished in fourth place at the World Cup. Now the Athens’ bronze medallists will try to make it to Beijing during a second chance against their continental opponents. The Norceca Women’s Olympic Qualification Tournament starts on Monday here with favourite and third world-ranked Cuba meeting Canada (24th) and host Mexico (25th) entertaining Trinidad & Tobago (70th). Six teams – Dominican Republic (14th) and Puerto Rico (19th) are the other two - will be battling for one single spot in the next Beijing Olympic Games.

NORCECA continental Championships begin tomorrow in Monterrey, Mexico. Here is the press release from NORCECA.

Six teams to compete for one Olympic spot in Monterrey

 

MONTERREY, Mexico, December 11, 2007.- Six women’s teams from NORCECA will be battling for one Olympic berth in the Pre-Olympic Continental  Tournament to be held in this Mexican city on December 17-23.

 

According to the Olympic qualification process the champion of this competition will join USA as competitors in the Beijing event. The Americans qualified to the Summer Games as third place finisher in the World Cup.

 

The USA men are spending their Christmas in sunny California in preparation for their next qualification tournament. Full article from USA Volleyball.

The U.S. Men’s National Volleyball Team will be spending the winter holidays in sunny Southern California as it prepares for the 2008 NORCECA Men’s Continental Olympic Qualification Championship, to be played Jan. 6-11 in Caguas, Puerto Rico. Players are being called back to the U.S. Men’s headquarters at the American Sports Center in Anaheim on Dec. 23. It is not known how many players from the 19-man roster will be returning. Most of the U.S. players from the 12-man World Cup team went straight from Japan to their international club teams.

Renovation of the Volleyball venue in Beijing has been completed. Check out the full story at FIVB.

The renovated Capital Indoor Stadium

Beijing, China, December 10, 2007 - The Capital Indoor Stadium (CAS), which is the official competition venue for the Volleyball tournament of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, is showing a fresh face after the renovation was completed days ago. The Stadium with some 15,000 seats is located in the Baishi Bridge of Haidian District in western Beijing. On April 16, 2008, it will host a double gender trial run - the Good Luck Beijing 2008 China Club Volleyball Tournament. From August 9^th to 24^th, 2008, the stadium will stage the Volleyball competitions of the Beijing Olympic Games. Last week it was checked, together with all Volleyball facilities, by the FIVB during an inspection visit led by the FIVB Vice-President, Cristóbal Marte Hoffiz.

FIVB article on the qualification so far…and what is to come.

The Chinese team and Emanuel Rego, gold medals in Athens. The Olympic qualification process for Beijing at the Continental stage

Lausanne, 7th December 2007 – The magnificent FIVB World Cup 2007 ended in Japan with its verdicts: 6 teams earned their Olympic berths for Volleyball 2008 Olympic Games. That was the first Olympic Qualification step. 8 places for Men and 8 for Women’s team have to be decided yet and they will be assigned through two incoming steps: the Continental Olympic Qualification Tournaments and the World Olympic Qualification Tournaments. A long path of challenges which will end in May.

From Volleyball Country

Three Olympic pre-qualification tournament has been played. Germany, Italy and Poland are qulified for Olympic qualification in January 2008 in Izmir.   

Thanks to the direct qualification of Russia and Bulgaria to the Beijing Olympic Games through the FIVB Men’s World Cup in Japan, the teams of Finland and the Netherlands also qualify to the Continental qualifications, as best runner-up. 

Aussie player Luke Campbell gives his thoughts at the end of the world cup.

From the sofia news

Martin Stoev, the head coach of the Bulgarian men’s volleyball team, could resign from the job after the Beijing Olympics next year.

“After the Olympics, I’ll be stepping down as national team coach. I can’t tell you the reasons for it, but that’s what I am thinking,” he told daily Trud.

Stoev, who turned 36 on Monday, has praised his team, which finished third at last year’s World Championships and grabbed the same place at the World Cup this year, securing their place on the podium with a 3-0 win over Argentina on Sunday.

Click here to read full post

As I did at the end of the Women World Cup today, just before leaving Japan, I’ll give an evaluation about the teams that participated at the 2007 Men’s World Cup.

Below you can see the final standings and, on the right, my personal judgment on the teams’ performances.

+ means that they played BETTER than I expected

= means that they played EXACTLY as I expected

- means that they played WORSE than I expected