Asian Volleyball Cup 2010 - Iran settled for the final Victory
The great volleyball action, the 13th edition of Asian Cup, kept the 8 nations busy for a whole week. Iran hosted the event which started off on 2nd August 2010. Iran won the Asian Cup last year in Japan by defeating their utmost rivals, the Japanese. This time around, the final victory was once again claimed by the defending champion Iran.
The impression of conquest was evident from the first game of the tournament that Iran was all set and prepared to defend the title this year. They entered the competition with a plan to kill anything, which would come to hinder their performance. They kept their word and crushed every other team in the tournament. With the series of wins, they paved their way to the final stage of the game. The Chinese team appeared to steal the title from them but couldn’t succeed to fulfil their plan. Iran re-wrote the history and successfully defended the title by posting a great win over Chinese team.
The final match was arranged at Al-Ghadir Hall in the city of Uroumieh, Iran on 8th August 2010. The Iranian team completely swept the Chinese side with a score of 3-0. All three sets were heavily dominated by the pumped-up Iranian team which posted 25-19, 25-18,25-18 in three respective sets.
Iran kicked off the first set by exhibiting un-stoppable spikes. The hitting, digging, blocking and defences were perfect, which helped the Iranian team to crash their opponents. The first set lasted for 23 minutes and Iran took a lead by winning the first set.
The game entered the second set in a similar style, and Chinese team couldn’t put-up with the thrilling shots of Iranian players. Iran extended the points’ difference to 11-7 in the early minutes of the second set. Iran stood on solid ground, and further tightened the screws to make it more difficult for the Chinese to make a come-back in the game. The result reached to a predictable stage that Iran would win the set, and it actually did.
Chinese team tried different strategies and replaced many of the players to fight back the sturdy Iranian team but no substitution worked for them. In the third set, Chinese totally lost the momentum and slowed down to a dead pace. Finally they had to bid farewell in the favour of Iranian team and contended with a runner-up tag. Iran smashed a straight three set victory over the Chinese and secured the Asian Cup title for another year.
The addition of new coach to the Iranian team provided them a competitive edge over their rivals. On top of that the home-court and encouraging crowd also supported the host team. The fans cheered at the highest level of their voices and screamed out their lungs to boost-up the morale of their team.
The gold medal was fastened-down by the host team, Iran and Chinese acquired the Silver medal for finishing second place in the tournament.
The teams from India and Chinese Taipei clashed for the third place. It was more important match for India, as they hardly managed to make it to match for third place. The presence of Indian team was due to the Indonesian team withdrawing from the tournament at last moments. They took control of the game against Chinese Taipei and won the bronze medal match. They poled a victory of 3-1 (22-25, 25-20, 25-16, and 27-25) which earned them the first medal in 24-years of continuous struggle.
In addition, Australia finished at fifth place by defeating South-Korea while Kazakhstan captured the seventh position by defeating last year’s finalist Japanese team.
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