Serbia leads the pack in FIVB World Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament – Volleyball news
The FIVB World Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament that is being staged in Tokyo has come to a pause after the fifth day came to its close on June 7, Thursday.
The matches will begin again from Saturday at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. As of now, the team that is leading the pack is the Serbian squad with a tournament record of 5-0.
The Serbians came into the tournament with the title of the European Champions and they have been able to prove it so far. The recent win that the Serbians have managed to secure was over Puerto Rico, which came after a clean sweep. The Puerto Ricans, who
have not been able to register even a single win and have won only one set in the tournament, were completely dominated by the Serbians due to their superior blocking, passing and serving techniques. Apart from having a winning streak in the tournament, the
Serbians have only lost one set overall.
After Serbia swept the Puerto Ricans, the Serbian coach Igor Kolakovic made the following comments, “We are satisfied with the victory. We played without emotion and in a routine fashion but finished with a 3-0 victory.”
The other matches that were held on the fifth day of the tournament took place between Iran and Venezuela, Korea and China as well as Japan and Australia.
The Iranians were able to hand out a defeat to the Venezuelans at 3-0 while the competition between Korea and China got tough as it reached five sets at the end of which the Koreans emerged as victors. On the other hand, the home team was able to make a
clean sweep over the Australians.
The coach of the Japanese squad Jon Uriarte, shared his enthusiasm at the win by making the following statements, “I want to thank the players. They were all focused tonight. We will do our best in our last two games. We will have to be psyched up and united.”
According to the current trend, the Serbians stand a very good chance of qualifying for the London 2012 Olympic Games that are to start from July 27.
Japan is not the only country that is playing host to the Olympic qualifiers; both Germany and Bulgaria are also staging matches in Berlin and Sofia respectively. The teams that are contesting for the Olympic qualification ticket in Germany are Czech Republic,
Cuba and India while Bulgaria is will be giving away its ticket to the top team among France, Egypt, Pakistan as well as the home team.
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