Wei Jizhong, Chinese vice-president of volleyball's world governing body FIVB, has told the national women's team: it must play every match like the final if it hopes to defend its Olympic gold medal in the August.
Wei Jizhong
|
"Whether in the group or the knockout stage, you will face very strong opponents. You have to take every game seriously," said Wei, who will be named FIVB's third president following the 31st FIVB World Congress in Dubai last month.
The handover of the presidency will be made on Aug 24 in Beijing.
Wei would not speculate too much about China's prospects due to his position at FIVB, but did say the new method of determining the quarterfinal draw would make the knockout stage wide open in Beijing.
"According to the previous rules, in the quarterfinals, top finishers from preliminary Pool A will play fourth finishers from Pool B while fourth finishers from Pool B are to clash with top finishers from Pool A," Wei elaborated.
"But a redraw will be made in the quarterfinals among the second and third finishers from the preliminaries. This will be different from previous Olympic volleyball tournaments."
Wei said the change, which was approved at the meeting in Dubai, aims to ensure fair play in the preliminaries.
"At the Athens Games, some teams lost preliminary games intentionally in order to choose their opponents in the knockout stage, and thus FIVB received a lot of criticism," Wei said. "We have made efforts to prevent similar things from happening in Beijing."
China's women's volleyball team will open its Olympic gold-medal defense against Venezuela.
It will also meet Poland, Cuba, the US and Japan, respectively, in Pool A.
The favorable draw will allow China to avoid powerhouses like Brazil, Italy and Russia in the group stage.
Pool B includes World Cup silver medalist Brazil, World Cup winner Italy, Athens Olympic silver medalist Russia, African champion Algeria, as well as Serbia and Kazakhstan.
But the new draw in the quarterfinals encourages China to secure the top position in Pool A in order to have a weaker opponent from Pool B. If China loses a match and finishes second, it will face a redraw and will be more likely to meet a stronger opponent in the knockout.
"The redraw in the quarters asks China to play their best from the first match on. They have to play every match like it is an Olympic final if they want to defend the title."
Wei made his comments during the FIVB Grand Prix in Ningbo, Zhejiang province late last month, one of the most significant tune-up tournaments for China before the Olympics.
China finished top with three wins, while Brazil - seen as China's biggest hurdle in Beijing - settled for second after a 2-3 loss to host China.
But Wei said performances in tune-up matches do not say much about real power of a team.
"Every team has different goals coming into tune-up matches, so I do not think they reveal the real power during the competitions. We do not have to take the results seriously," Wei said.
