This yr, volleyball is returning to the town the place it first began its Olympic journey – Tokyo.
It appears solely becoming to look again on the historical past of Olympic volleyball since we’re returning to its Olympic birthplace.
So what yr was it launched? How has the format modified? And the place do seashore and sitting volleyball match into all of this?
Indoor volleyball returning to its Olympic roots in Tokyo
The Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) was based in 1947 and fashioned the groundwork for making volleyball a world-recognized sport. The Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) acknowledged volleyball as a non-Olympic sport in 1949, and in 1957, the IOC forged their votes and volleyball was made into an Olympic sport.
The indoor volleyball competitors had its Olympic debut in 1964 that includes each the boys’s and ladies’s competitors with Japan profitable the gold within the ladies’s occasion and Soviet Union profitable the gold within the males’s occasion.
It was nearly dropped within the subsequent Video games in 1968, however protests prevented it from going away, so volleyball remained on the Olympics that yr and for a few years to comply with. Now, over 50 years later, volleyball is returning to Tokyo, and Japan has the potential to win the gold once more as effectively.
Altering up the format of event play
When volleyball first got here to the Olympics, it was arrange in a round-robin event, the place each group performed one another and the finalists have been decided by variety of wins, set common and level common. This was an issue as a result of winners might be decided earlier than each group received executed enjoying one another, which made followers lose curiosity in later matches after the profitable groups have been already decided early on within the event.
So after the 1968 Olympics, they switched to the 12-team format they nonetheless use immediately the place every group performs one another as soon as after which the highest 4 groups advance to the semifinals. Groups can transfer up and down simply on the leaderboard on this format, inflicting followers to be extra engaged with every match.
Plus this makes for a extra aggressive season earlier than the Olympic Video games as groups compete to look within the Video games and be one of many 12 groups to advance to the preliminary rounds.
Including Paralympic volleyball and seashore volleyball to the Video games
In 1980, volleyball was formally and totally launched to the Paralympic Video games after having a profitable trial run in 1976. They began out with having each standing and sitting competitions, however moved away from the standing self-discipline in 2004 after the Olympics in Athens.
Within the 1980 Paralympics, the Netherlands took dwelling the Gold within the males’s sitting competitors, however there wasn’t a ladies’s competitors on the time. In the newest 2016 Paralympics in Rio, Iran took dwelling the gold medal for the boys and the USA took dwelling the gold medal for the ladies.
Seashore began formally in 1996 on the Video games in Atlanta after an indication of the game went rather well within the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The primary official event in ’96 had 24 groups on the boys’s facet and solely 16 on the ladies’s, however expanded to 24 for each the women and men in 2000.
The seashore rivals are decided by how they carry out in FIVB tournaments over the course of about 18 months main as much as the Olympics, and solely two groups from every nation can qualify for the Olympics.
Within the first official Olympic seashore occasion in 1996, Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes from the USA received the gold medal on the boys’s facet, making Kiraly the one particular person to win a medal in each the indoor and seashore volleyball competitors. The Brazilian duo of Jackie Silva and Sandra Pires received the gold for the ladies after beating one other group from Brazil within the remaining match.
Most elite gamers in volleyball historical past
As the game grew in recognition, so did its gamers. As talked about above, Karch Kiraly grew to become certainly one of volleyball’s most well-known and versatile gamers, profitable medals in each the indoor and seashore competitions. He’s now expanded his enjoying data into teaching and is the USA ladies’s indoor volleyball head coach. He’s seeking to safe one other gold medal along with his high notch group at this yr’s Olympic Video games.
Talking of girls’s indoor volleyball, Mireya Luis was a pressure on the courtroom for the Cuba ladies’s nationwide volleyball group within the ’90s. Standing at only one.75m tall, she didn’t let top get in the way in which of her excellent outdoors hitting talents, particularly together with her 3.39-meter vertical. She helped Cuba win three Olympic gold medals in 1992, 1996 and 2000, two world championships in 1994 and 1998 and three FIVB World Cups in 1989, 1991 and 1995.
Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty Might-Treanor are a few of seashore volleyball’s hottest gamers after profitable the gold medal on the Olympics in 2004, 2008 and 2012. Along with that, in addition they received the FIVB Seashore Volleyball World Championships in 2003, 2005 and 2007 with some followers and gamers naming them “the best seashore volleyball group of all time.”
In Brazil, Giba owned the boys’s indoor volleyball competitors for many of the 2000s. Giba performed outdoors hitter for the Brazil males’s indoor nationwide volleyball group from 1995–2012. He went to a few Olympic Video games and received two silver medals and one gold medal. Along with that, he helped his group win three world championships, and was named “Essentially the most well-known Volleyball participant within the World” by Sky Sports activities in 2011.
What’s subsequent for volleyball on the Olympics?
Volleyball, as an Olympic sport, hasn’t been round for too lengthy, and immediately, there are three volleyball disciplines being performed throughout each the Olympics and Paralympics: indoor, sitting and seashore.
Through the years, the gamers have gotten stronger, the rallies have gotten longer and the matches have gotten extra intense. For each the groups and followers, this sport continues to develop and acquire momentum, and it will likely be thrilling to see groups return to the Olympic stage and compete for the all-important Olympic gold medal in Tokyo this yr.
