World champs Serbia to get Ningbo Olympic qualifier underway

The biggest women’s national team volleyball event of the year, the FIVB Road to Paris Volleyball Qualifiers, set to take place in three locations from September 16 through 24, is less than 24 hours away. The world’s best 24 teams are split into three round-robin pools of eight. Six of them, the three pool winners and the three pool runners-up, will book coveted tickets to next year’s Olympic Games in Paris.

Today, let’s take a look at Pool A, to be played in Ningbo, where Canada, Czechia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Netherlands, Serbia, Ukraine and hosts China will race for two spots at Paris 2024.

• Watch the FIVB Road to Paris Volleyball Qualifiers live on VBTV

Serbia have all the reasons to consider themselves favourites to win the tournament in Ningbo. The Serbs are reigning two-time back-to-back world champions, medallists of the last two editions of the Olympic Games (Rio 2016 silver and Tokyo 2020 bronze), medallists of seven of CEV EuroVolley’s nine most recent editions and number three in the FIVB World Ranking. As of this season, they are guided by one of the world’s most accomplished women’s volleyball coaches Giovanni Guidetti, who steered the team to the spectacular European Championship final earlier this month, which they narrowly lost to Türkiye after a tight five-set battle, with Generation O star Tijana Boskovic hammering 37 points, assisted by magical playmaker Maja Ognjenovic. That loss put an end to a nine-match winning streak spanning between Volleyball Nations League 2023 and EuroVolley 2023. Serbia made their Olympic debut at Beijing 2008 and have been regular participants ever since.

Rio 2016 Olympic champions China underperformed at Tokyo 2020 and are hungry to get back and redeem themselves on the Olympic stage next year. Enjoying the home-court advantage in Ningbo, they are also among the big favourites for Paris 2024 tickets. They have already shown tremendous growth with their silver medals at both major competitions they have taken part in so far this year, the VNL and the AVC Asian Championship. China are currently number six in the World Ranking. They have played at every single edition of the Olympic Games since Los Angeles 1984, winning three gold, one silver and two bronze medals along the way. Now the team around captain Yuan Xinyue and star striker Li Yingying seems to be well on its way back to China’s days of glory.

Three teams standing right next to each other in the World Ranking – number 9 the Netherlands, number 10 Dominican Republic and number 11 Canada – will also have their say in the battles for Olympic berths in Ningbo. The Netherlands will try to use the momentum from their bronze-medal finish at Euro Volley 2023 to secure their fourth Olympic appearance, after finishing fourth at Rio 2016. The Dominicans’ confidence was recently boosted by the continental title they won at the 2023 NORCECA Championship. They also hope to qualify for the Games for the fourth time. So do Canada, whose third and most recent Olympic appearance dates back to Atlanta 1996. Their national team’s recent growth has been reaffirmed by the 10^th places at the most recent editions of the FIVB Volleyball Women’s World Championship and the VNL, their best results in the history of both competitions, as well as their third consecutive continental bronze from earlier this month.

Two European teams and Mexico complete the line-up of participants, all three with potential to defeat any of their opponents in Ningbo. The world’s number 17 Czechia and number 19 Ukraine are hoping to qualify for the Olympics for the first time in history, while number 23 Mexico have played at the Games once, way back in 1968 when they hosted the Olympics.

Serbia will open the tournament in China with a game against Mexico at 10:00 local time (02:00 UTC) on Saturday. The first competition day will continue with a match between Dominican Republic and Czechia at 13:00 (05:00). The Netherlands and Canada will hit the court for an exciting clash at 16:00 (08:00), before hosts China entertain Ukraine at 19:30 (11:30).

The most anticipated duel of the tournament, between Serbia and China, on the other hand, will close the competition on September 24. Every competition day in Ningbo features all eight participating teams engaging in four matches on the daily programme. September 18 and 21 are rest days.

FIVB Road to Paris Volleyball Qualifiers: full schedule

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