The three major competitions of women's volleyball are the Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Cup. According to the perception of Chinese fans, the Chinese women's volleyball team is only eligible to be counted as the champions of team history if they win in these three events. As one of the three women's volleyball competitions, the Olympic Games always seems to be the other two competitions. What is so special about it?
1. History is different
The first modern Olympic Games was held in Athens, Greece in 1896, and it has been 124 years. The sport of volleyball first appeared in 1895. In 1896, it was given the important feature of "air shot", and it officially became the familiar "volleyball" now. It is worth noting that the first appearance of the volleyball game at the Olympic Games was in the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964, 56 years ago.
The full name of Women's Volleyball World Championship is the World Women's Volleyball Championship. It started in 1952 and has been held for 17 sessions.
The Women’s Volleyball World Cup is a women’s World Cup volleyball competition. The predecessor was the "Three Continents Cup." . In 1991, two years in advance, the year before the Olympic Games as an Olympic qualifier, the top three qualified for the Olympic Games the following year.
2, the nature of the game is different
The Olympic Games is a big gathering, the best athletes in the world will appear in the Olympic Village, so this is the reason why Lang Ping and Bryant group photo. The World Championships and the World Cup are both individual volleyball events. Except for volleyball professionals and fans, there will be no other athletes around.
3. Different gold content
The three major tournaments will produce championships and gold medals, but the gold content of the three gold medals is still significantly different. The Olympic gold medal contains the highest gold content. The tenure of the head coach of the Chinese women's volleyball team, the player training plan, and the team's future goals are all based on the Olympic cycle every four years. The gold medal in the World Championships is second, and the World Cup gold medal is third.
Originally, the World Cup represented the highest level of special sports, but because of the continuous reform of the FIVB in recent years and the continuous support of the Women's Volleyball World League, this has had a significant impact on the Women's Volleyball World Cup. Coupled with the decoupling of the World Cup from the Olympic tickets, the attractiveness of the Women's Volleyball World Cup to the strong teams has further declined, and it may even be replaced by the World League for its three major qualifications. Judging from the overall performance in the past two years, the meaning of the highest honor in the women's volleyball competition represented by the Women's Volleyball World Cup will be transferred to the Women's Volleyball World Championships.
4. Different pressure
The Olympics has the greatest pressure. This is the common experience of all the national women's volleyball players who have participated in the Olympics. Regardless of whether they are new or old players, they are trembling under the weight of the Olympics. This is normal. The Chinese women's volleyball team had a sluggish record during the Rio group stage. Ding Xia's social media gained 20,000 to 30,000 fans a day, all of which were critics.
Lin Li also faced the same situation, she simply shut down social media and didn't watch it at all. Not to mention that Gong Xiangyu, who sheds tears every day, played in the Olympics for half a year after entering the team, which is rare in the history of Chinese women's volleyball team.
The attention of the Chinese people is external pressure, and the women's volleyball national players will also put pressure on themselves: the table tennis team next door won the gold medal today, and the "fat guy who doesn't understand the ball" is happy every day. When can we win? They are all national teams, and they represent China. Our women's volleyball team must not be compared to them.
This is Zhu Ting’s heart knot that has always existed in the Rio group stage. Later, under Xu Yunli’s enlightenment, he figured it out: all are the Chinese Olympic delegation, the more cards they get in other events , The stronger our strength, we should be happy for them, this is not pressure but motivation.
The World Championships and the World Cup are both individual events, and the participating players are volleyball players, which are relatively quiet. And these two events will not have gold medals until the end, and there will be no news of gold and silver medals every day like the Olympics. In special events, athletes' mentality is less disturbed by off-court factors, and the pressure comes from opponents rather than other aspects.
5. The competition system is different.
A total of 12 teams participated in the Olympic Games. There were 5 games in the group stage and 3 games in the knockout stage. In the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals, the Chinese women's volleyball team won the Olympic championship after playing a total of 8 games in the Rio Olympics.
The World Championships have the most participating teams and the most complicated competition system. The 24 teams are divided into 4 groups, each with 6 teams, and a single loop is performed to determine the group rankings. Each team has 5 games. In the first stage, the top four in each group entered the second stage. The 16 teams were divided into two large groups to conduct a round-robin match again. Based on the principle of not meeting in the same group, the teams that had already faced each other in the first stage no longer compete, so the second Each team has 4 games in each stage. In the second stage, the top two of each group went directly to the semi-finals and finals. At least 11 games are required to win the World Championships. The time is long, there are many venues, and the journey is very challenging.
A total of 12 teams participated in the World Cup. The single round-robin system is adopted. Each team will play a game with all opponents. After the game, the championship and runner-up rankings will be automatically generated. There is no knockout or final. Because of the special World Cup format and there are not many real strong teams, it is likely that the first game will determine the final champion. It is worth noting that the Women's Volleyball World Cup is also 11 games.
6. Cancel the technical timeout
Everyone knows that every time a side scores 8 or 16 points in an indoor volleyball game, the game will enter a technical timeout. Previously, the Beijing Olympics and the London Olympics also followed this rule, but the 2016 Rio Olympics cancelled the technical suspension on the grounds that the game was cut into several fragments, which was too protracted.
The coach has two timeouts per quarter, 30 seconds each time, as well as a Hawkeye challenge. If one minute of technical timeout is added, a game may exceed 3 hour. The Brazilian Olympic Games men’s and women’s volleyball team has 76 games all played in the same stadium. To ensure that all competition arrangements can proceed smoothly, the technical timeout was cancelled.
It is unclear whether the technical suspension will be cancelled for the Tokyo Olympic Women's Volleyball match, but if all the matches are also held at the Ariake Stadium by then, the technical suspension will likely be cancelled again. Cancelling the technical timeout is more beneficial to the strong teams, and the volleyball game originally pursues smoothness, and the Chinese women's volleyball team currently has the characteristics of a strong team and smooth competition, so we are not panicked.
Regardless of whether the technical suspension is cancelled or not, the Chinese women's volleyball team needs to do a good job in order to remain unchanged. I look forward to seeing the women's volleyball team contribute to the fans in the Tokyo Olympics, and I look forward to seeing the Chinese women's volleyball team successfully defend their title.
