Tournaments in Volleyball: Volleyball is one of the most interesting and popular sports across the globe. The game has become more popular since its inception in Olympics 1964. A Federation of International Volleyball is the governing body of sports. A sport will be popular if it is played frequently before the audience. The broadcasting coverage also will help to reach the millions of people across the globe.
Already, volleyball is the most popular sport in North America and Europe regions. The sport has a considerable presence in South America region thanks to Brazil’s stellar performance in the international arena.
The FIVB is taking each and every step to popularize the game in South Asia regions because the next Olympic is going to take place in Tokyo. The game volleyball is known for its traditional sporting culture. There are lots of international tournaments organized every year.
Each and every tournament has its own history. The tournaments will be conducted for both men and women categories. Here is the list of few important tournaments that are placed across various countries every year.
Volleyball World Championships
It is one of the major volleyball tournaments played four years once. The event will be conducted by FIVB, the governing body of the sport. The event includes the qualification phase in which the countries will be qualified for the main event based on their performances in the qualification rounds.
Mostly qualification rounds will be conducted on the continent basis. 24 teams will be allowed to participate in the main event where the hosting country will be automatically qualified for the main event.
The tournament was first conducted in 1962. Russia won the Volleyball World Championship by 6 six times the most by any other counties. Then Brazil, Italy, and Poland won it thrice each and the Czech Republic has won it twice.USA and Germany emerged victorious each time. Poland is the defending champions. The tournament was recently held in this year. The event was hosted by two countries Italy and Bulgaria. The next is going to happen in the year 2022.
Volleyball World League
The concept of conducting Volleyball World League was emerged in the late 1980s to promote the game. With world championships and Olympic Games are played every four years it is important for the sport to have a grant annual event. The first volleyball world league was conducted in the year of 1990 by FIVB.
Each country will be given hosting rights to conduct the event. The country should provide TV & media coverage for the live event. This concept proved to be visionary by FIVB especially in East Asia region where the game became more popular after this event.
Like world championships Italy, Russia and Brazil dominated the events. The preliminary round will be played on different countries on intercontinental basis means the rounds will be conducted in all continents like Asia, America Europe etc.
After this round, the top teams in each round will be qualified for the final round, and the hosting nation remains pre-qualified. The women’s version of this will also be conducted on the same format and it is called as FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix.
Volleyball Men’s World Cup
This tournament should not be confused with FIVB world championships. The FIVB is also conducting this event once four years. Mainly the event will be conducted on the year proceeding to the Olympics. World cup acts as a direct qualification for the Olympics. The teams finished at the top will be qualified directly for the event. This tournament involves 12 top countries where the host (Japan) being an automatically qualified team. The event was originally conducted to fill the gap between Olympics and world championships from 1965.
The event was planned to conduct four years once and after 1977 Japan was made the permanent host. The women’s edition was also started from 1973 onwards. After the inception of volleyball world league, this tournament slowly lost its ground. After 1990 the FIVB decided to make the teams who finished top two places can be directly qualified for Olympics. Virtually this decision saved the tournament.
FIVB Volleyball World Grand Champions Cup
The idea behind inducting this tournament was to have two grand events every year. Volleyball world grand champions cup was started in the year 1993 by FIVB. It is a six-nation event and Japan being the permanent host of the tournament will be automatically qualified for the event. The four teams that won the intercontinental championships and a team that gets wild card entry from FIVB along with Japan will be taking part in this event.
These are the major events in the international volleyball arena along with the Olympics and these events continue to attract a huge audience and also bringing revenues through broadcasting and sponsorship. The FIVB is succeeded in promoting these events worldwide and making them a grand success. The popularity of these events made many countries to take up the sport and now the sport is expanding its boundaries all over the world.
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