Volleyball In The Olympics

Volleyball In The Olympics 
Volleyball is a type of sports played in Olympics. The game comprises of two teams of six players each. The two teams are separated on the ground by a high net.

The game is managed by a set of organized rules wherein each team tries to earn a point by grounding the ball in the opposition’s court.

Rules of the Game:
•    Offense scores on a defense miss or out of bounds hit and vice versa.
•    Game is played to 25 points and whichever team reaches there first wins the set. Normally a game of three sets is played.
•    No team can touch the ball for more than three times before the ball reaches the other court
•    Consecutive contacts have to be made by different players of one team
•    Ball is to be played with hand
•    Any other part of body can be used to push the ball

History:
Volleyball started long back with the Olympics organized in the year 1924 in Paris and was played as a part of sports demonstration event of America. The foundation of FIVB helped establishing the sport as an official game. A special tournament was conducted in the year 1957, at the 53rd IOC session. This was held in Sofia, Bulgaria with an aim of supporting this sport.

The event turned out to be successful and since then the sport received a green flag for getting included in the Olympics. It got included later in the 1964 Olympics.

Olympics Volley Ball:
Originally organized as a single competition, all teams were made to play with one another. Later they were given ranking based upon the number of games win.

The downside of this was that championship winners could be predetermined leaving little scope of interest. The audience used to loose the interest in the game because of this. Hence, to prohibit such a scene, the tournament then started getting split into two main parts (in 1972 Olympics). There were two main rounds accompanied by a final one. Elimination was one at each stage of quarter, semi and finals. This left enough scope for maintaining sufficient amount of interest in the matches.

Wins:
Men’s
•    U.S.S.R.: Gold (1964, 1968, 1980 with win over Bulgaria by 3-1)
•    Japan: Bronze (1964), silver (1968), gold (1972)
•    Poland: Gold (1976)
•    US: Gold (1984 win against Brazil, 1988)
•    Brazil : Gold ( 1992 defeating Netherlands and Italy, 2004 beating Italy)
•    Netherlands : Silver (1992), gold (1996 won with five sts against Italy)
•    Italy: Bronze (1984)
•    Serbia and Montenegro: Bronze (1996, 2000 defeating Russia)
 
Women’s
•    Japan: gold (1964, 1976)