olympics

The Beijing Olympics are underway, and the worlds best volleyball teams (minus the Australian's unfortunately) have gathered to compete for gold. Forunately for us Aussies who are typically starved of top level competition, SBS is scheduled to show a lot of the action for us. Check out the times below.

Over two fantastic weeks, all the Australian volleyball teams performed above their world rankings. Unfortunately, none of them won medals, but they can certainly all be proud of their performances in Athens.

Despite losing their last match to Iran, the Volleyball Team Australian Men have qualified for the 2004 Athens Olympics. They did it by the smallest of margins though, edging out China on the ladder by no more than 10 points over the seven qualifying tournament matches - the teams were equal on both match wins and total sets won and lost.

The Volleyball Team Australia Men have won three of their first four matches at the Olympic Qualifying tournament in Japan this week.

The teams for Volleyball at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens will be finalised in May during a series of Olympic Qualifying tournaments. The Australian men will play in Japan (May 22-30) against the hosts Japan, Algeria, Canada, France, Korea, China and Iran for one of only two Olympic spots available - one for the winner and the second to the best Asian team. The Australian women though are already out of Olympic contention as they struggle to move back up to a top-25 world ranking. As of January 2004, the Australian men's indoor team are ranked 21 (with 21.25 points) in the world. On top of the men's world rankings are Brazil (277.0 points) and Italy (226.5 points) after their first and second placings respectively at the 2003 World Cup. The Australian women have fallen a couple of spots to 27 (7.5 points). Heading the women's world rankings are China (257.0 points), USA (236.0 points) and Brazil (191.5 points), all of whom have already qualified for the Athens Games.

Shane Purvis from Australian Volleyball Warehouse has notified the Australian volleyball community that more than 200 volleyballs from the Sydney Olympics have been stolen.

It was like a who's who of Australian volleyball in Sydney over the Olympics and it made you realise just how small the volleyball community is in this country - it was largely the same faces with many people already knowing each other.

As boring as it was, we were there as the Australian women's volleyball team made history today as the first Australian volleyball team to win a match at the Olympics.

What is it with Olympics and Italian volleyball??!! Every Olympiad in recent times we say that the Italian men's volleyball team are the best side never to win a gold medal...and it has happened again...they choked. A few days ago I hesitated as I wrote that the great Andrea Sartoretti didn't cope with the pressure he was put under by the Australian crowd in the quarters, because surely a player of his skill and experience wouldn't be bothered by partisan spectators. However, last night, not only did Sartoretti buckle under the pressure but so did all his teammates.

A more relaxed event than the Olympics, the Sydney Paralympics nevertheless broke all previous records and made the world sit up and take notice.