Peru plays Canada at the Montreal 1976 women's tournament.
The birthplaces of basketball and volleyball are within eight miles of each other. Right up the road from Springfield, Massachusetts is Holyoke, where in 1895 a YMCA director named William G. Morgan strung up a net and invented a game called "mintonette" for businessmen to play over lunch hour. Morgan was a friend of hoops pioneer James Naismith, and his game came along four years after the first peach basket.
Morgan passed away in 1942, and never got to see his innovation gain Olympic status. Men's and women's tournaments were held at Tokyo 1964, and Japan immediately showed itself as a power. The men went 7-2 and won bronze behind the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, but the women won all five of their matches and won 15 of 16 games.
Volleyball, the indoor kind, is played on a court. The point of the game is simple: make the ball hit the ground on the opponent's side of the net.
Sides can only hit the ball three times before volleying it to the other side of the net, and a player cannot hit the ball twice in a row. Ball movement is usually done via backcourt below-shoulder digs, two-handed volleys and finally crushing, airborne spikes to the opposite end of the court. Throwing, pushing, scooping or otherwise holding the ball for more than a split-second are all illegal, and result in a point awarded to the opposing team. A referee elevated above the net calls the action, and four linesmen call borderline balls in or out of bounds.
These days, games are played to 25 points, and matches are best of three games.
Between Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000, the FIVB added an extra dimension to the indoor game in the person of the "libero." This defensive specialist, generally a shorter player, wears a different color uniform and must stay in the backcourt away from the net. He or she must be rotated in and out -- one scored point must occur between libero substitutions -- and therefore cannot play the entirety of a match.
Another rule, designed to increase television interest, was "rally scoring." Previous to Sydney 2000, games were best of 15 and the teams could only score when they held serve. As many rallies ended in a possession change and a "side out," games lasted for up to three hours. The new rules have cut average match times considerably.
Also in the 1990's, as the sport celebrated its centennial, a telegenic variety known as "beach volleyball" came to prominence. The first major international tournament was held at the 1994 Goodwill Games and its Olympic debut came in Atlanta. With men stripped to the waist and female competitors in bikinis, backed by blaring rock music and P.A. hype men, it became a sport for a new century. Beach volleyball games are played two-on-two and are single best-to-15 affairs, following the pre-2000 indoor scoring rules.
Volleyball Fun Facts:
- The Cuban women emerged as contenders in the 1970's, but they built a powerhouse in the 1990's. With sustained excellence and little roster turnover, Cuba won three straight gold medals in Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney, going 18-3 in Olympic play during that stretch. Here's a glimpse of their graceful, airborne style (from the 1996 semifinals against Brazil), and at around the 4 minute mark, a glimpse at their, er, fiery competitiveness.
- In the 1992 men's tournament preliminaries, Japan and two-time Olympic champions United States were locked in a heated match. With Japan up 2-1 in games and leading 14-13, American bald-headed wonder Bob Samuelson protested a call and was given a yellow card. But he had already received one, and a second means an ejection and a point awarded to the opponent. At that time in the action, Japan would have won the match, but the referee from Azerbaijan didn't want to end things on a penalty point. The U.S. came back to win in five sets.
The win was overturned the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) the next day, and the rest of the team shaved their heads to match Samuelson's (right) as a protest and show of solidarity. The chrome-domed American team went on to the semifinals, where they lost to eventual gold medalist Brazil.
- The United States didn't win a medal in the first two Olympic women's beach volleyball tournaments. Seems unthinkable now, as American pairs have been smashing volleyballs and records for years. After Sydney, Misty May-Treanor, who finished fifth with former partner Holly McPeak, joined up with Kerri Walsh, who had been playing with the U.S. indoor team. After destroying the field at Athens, the pair won 90 straight match wins in 2007 and 2008, and go into Beijing having won 100 tournaments in 153 tries.
In 2008:
Indoor volleyball will take place every day at the Games. The venues will be the Capital Indoor Stadium and Beijing Institute of Technology Gymnasium.
In addition to the host nation, teams qualified by way of the men's and women's FIVB World Cups (top three teams from each advance), or by winning one of the five continental championships earlier this year. Remaining spots were given out at Olympic qualifying tournaments in May.
The indoor tournaments are both set up as six-team groups.
Men
Group A: United States, Italy, Bulgaria, China, Japan, Venezuela
Group B: Serbia, Brazil, Poland, Germany, Egypt, Russia
Women
Group A: Japan, Venezuela, Poland, Cuba, China, United States
Group B: Algeria, Serbia, Italy, Russia, Kazakhstan, Brazil
Beach volleyball will take place at the Beach Volleyball Ground at Chaoyang Park from Days 1 through 14 (August 9-22). Olympic BV uses the FIVB's world rankings to determine Olympic placement, admitting 24 men's and 24 women's pairs. Each nation may only send two teams each, so pairs outside the top 24 were taken if a country's quota was already satisfied. For example, Germany, Brazil and the United States have highly-ranked teams that cannot go to Beijing.
All-Time Medal Standings:
| Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 12 |
 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 10 |
 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 12 |
 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 |
 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
(Photo via 1976 Official Report)
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