VOLLEYBALL
History
The history of Olympic volleyball can be traced back to the 1924 Olympics in Paris where it was played as part of an American sports demonstration event.
It was only after the Second World War, though, with the formation of the world governing body FIVB, that the sport really began to progress and it was officially added to the Olympic programme at Tokyo in 1964.
The volleyball Olympic tournament was originally a simple competition, whose format paralleled the one still employed in the World Cup: all teams played against each other team and then were ranked by wins, set average and point average. One disadvantage of this round-robin system is that medal winners could be determined before the end of the games, making the audience lose interest in the outcome of the remaining matches.
To cope with this situation, the competition was split into two phases: a "final round" was introduced, consisting of quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals. Since its creation in 1972, this new system has become the standard for the volleyball Olympic tournament, and is usually referred to as the "Olympic format".
The number of teams involved in the games has grown steadily since 1964. Since 1996, both men's and women's indoor events count 12 participant nations. Each of the five continental volleyball confederations has at least one affiliated national federation involved in the Olympic Games.
Beach volleyball was a demonstration sport at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and was introduced as an official Olympic event in 1996 in Atlanta. A total of 24 teams participate in each beach volleyball Olympic tournament.
Teams qualify on the basis of their performance in FIVB events over the course of approximately 18 months leading up to the Olympics. There is a limit of two teams per country, and one spot each is reserved for the host country and a randomly chosen wildcard country. In the event that any continent is not represented, the highest ranked team from that continent qualifies for the tournament.
Technical
Two teams of six active players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points against one another by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.
Points are awarded if the ball touches the ground outside the court area, the team which made contact with it last loses the point. If the ball touches the ground on team A's side of the net, team B is awarded a point, and vice-versa. The ball must be hit over the net to get a point.The team who wins the point then serves. The first team to reach 25 points wins the set and the first team to win three sets wins the match.
Teams can contact the ball only three times before the ball crosses the net, and consecutive contacts must be made by different players. The ball is usually played with the hands or arms, but players can legally strike or push [short contact] the ball with any part of the body.
Major players
Early editions of the volleyball tournament were dominated by Eastern European countries, particularly the Soviet Union. The balance of power began to shift towards the United States when they won their first gold medal at the Soviet-boycotted Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. A long-awaited confrontation between the Western and Eastern volleyball leaders came in Seoul four years later when the US defeated the Soviet Union in the final. Since then the dominant force have been Brazil, the 1992 and 2004 winners, but the US won the gold medal in Beijing in 2008, their first for 20 years.
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