Women's World Olympic Qualification

I hope some day FIVB will begin to function under the same high standards of professional ethics and fairness as FIFA.











{BARF}

About the conspiracy theory on Serbia-Japan, I am probably in the minority of the people who is not sold on it.

After rewatching the Japan-Serbia match with calmer emotions, I don't think Japan threw the match or that 5th set.

Japan didn't receive serve well in the 5th set. I thought Serbia did a good job picking on Saori and serving her and she was under average in reception esp. in critical parts of the match.

Elsewhere, I heard from other people that Japan were deliberately making attacking errors in the 5th. What I saw was a Japanese team that was out of system and a Serbian team that made good blocking moves. Japan was still covering their hitters and playing defense.

I also heard the theory that Take%*$#a was deliberately setting her hitters in front of Serbia's block. Twice in the 5th set when Japan got blocked were when Take%*$#a had actually isolated her hitter to hit against a single Serbian blocker.

Probably the most suspicious thing for others is that Japan made 4 serving errors in the 5th set. I admit, they did hurt Japan's momentum. But I watched those serves again and those errors were not grossly negligent enough for me to think they were deliberately giving points to Serbia. A couple were actually quite close to being in.


I'm not trying to change other people's minds. Everyone is free to think what they want. As far as I'm concerned, there are matches that go into the "embrassingly-obvious-fixed-matches" column. And to me, this wasn't one of them.

If I was Serbia I'd rather see Thailand than Japan in the Olympics.

With the picking of lots for 2 v. 3 USA could win all but one match, finish second, then get Russia the first round (say Russkies finish second behind Italy). Russia wouldn't be ecstatic about that either. Blech.

The point is, of course, that Serbia would rather see SERBIA in the Olympics, and Japan would rather see JAPAN in the Olympics. They could have played straight up, and the winner goes.... Or they could have made a deal -- Serbia guarantees Japan two sets if Japan guarantees Serbia the win. That would mean nothing was left to chance. It's not about wanting Thailand out of the Olympics, it's about a guarantee of getting into the Olympics yourself.

Did they do this? I have no idea. The rules need to be changed so that this scenario can't happen. Any time there is any potential incentive to throw a game there will be questions asked about whether it happened.

The idea of a 3-2 win giving 2/1 points instead of 3/0 sounds like a good idea, but it leads to this outcome. I think a win should be a win and a loss should be a loss, regardless of how many sets are played. Even if there were no intentional collusion, once Japan won two sets they were in, while Serbia still needed that third set. If nothing else this gives Serbia more motivation than Japan in the fifth set.

They also should clearly separate the Asian tournament from the Olympic Qualifiers. Why do all the other regions get a straight-up internal fight for the regional spot but the Asian teams have this strange mixed tournament? If you must do it this way, then at least the Asian winner should be taken out of the pool first (like effectively happens for all the other regions) rather than afterward.