Women's Teams Qualified For Olympics

[USAFAN]

12 Team Tournament

Host Nation:
1. Greece

World Cup:
2. China
3. Brazil
4. USA

Europe Qualifier:
5. Germany

Norceca Qualifier:
6. Cuba

South America Qualifier:
7. Dominican Republic

Africa Qualifier:
8. Kenya

The final four spots will be decided in Japan tournament, which doubles as the last chance tourney and the Asian qualifier. The tournament happens in May so there is quite a bit of time till then. What a huge relief it must be to have qualified for the games at this point. The last chance tournament will put a lot of pressure on teams like Italy and Russia, who everyone expected a lot out of. This tournament will field Japan(hosts), South Korea, Thailand, and Chinese Taipei. Russia and Italy will be the two other teams, because they are the two highest ranked teams not currently qualified. Italy is currently 4th in the FIVB rankings followed by Russia at 5th. As well as the two European teams they will be joined by South America's Argentina and the NORCECA's Puerto Rico. Speaking of Puerto Rico, does anyone know if Aury Cruz will be playing with the team? Puerto Rico has been getting a lot better over the years, and the possibility of an upset of an Asian team is possible. Four teams qualify out of this tournament. Most likely, if going by the rankings, Italy, Russia, Japan, and South Korea will qualify. Thailand, Puerto Rico, and Argentina are all capable of upsetting Japan or Korea if they played their best volleyball of their lives. However, I think things will stay true to form.
Nice to see the Norceca region get three teams in the games with the USA, Cuba, and Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic will have to step it up big time if they want to make it out of pool play though. The Africa qualifier was somewhat of an upset with Kenya qualifying over Egypt, which has been the top ranked team after their recent wins. This marks Kenya's second Olympic showing in the past two games. However, they are still a ways away before they can make any dents into the other National Teams. Greece is there because they are the host nation, but not much is expected out of them because they are ranked 22nd in the world.

[BigTenVball]

How many teams get invited to the "last chance" qualifier?
If only 4 get out, there are going to be some good teams on the outside looking in?
Russia, Italy, S Korea, Poland, Turkey, Japan, Croatia....
Those are at least 7 quality teams, will they all get invited? Who gets left out?

[USAFAN]

Croatia(not even close to the level they were at previous games), Turkey, Poland, and other good European teams will be left out. While they have had some good showings in the recent tournaments, a lot of what has to do with the rankings are the tournaments throughout the quadrennial. Although Italy and Russia have struggled this year, 2001, 2002, and early 2003, they were much stronger than Turkey, Poland, etc in those tournaments. South Korea has a strong chance of qualifying.

[BigTenVball]

Whoops, just posted.
8 teams invited to Japan for last chance qualifier.
Japan
S Korea
Thailand
Chinese Taipei
Italy
Russia
Argentina
Puerto Rico

Sorry Poland and Turkey.
But, Chinese Taipei? Thailand?

[USAFAN]

While Chinese Taipei and Thailand may not be ranked very high, they are in the tournament because this tournament is the Asian qualifying tournament as well as the last chance. There are weak teams in every region, but you have to be fair and give them all a chance to qualify.

[foreignball]

I just posted something in another thread about men QT - it seems to me FIVB fields up OG qualifiers like NCAA when it comes to “at large” bids – a lot of factors are involved but as a whole the package is not set up to guarantee only the best teams will get in.

[Psychopotamus]

With Jelic back, shouldn't Croatia be back up to full strength?

[sIsam]

USAFAN said:

Croatia(not even close to the level they were at previous games), Turkey, Poland, and other good European teams will be left out.

IMO Poland and Turkey are the two that are getting hurt the most but I guess they will have to treat this as experience gained and shoot for a spot for the 08 Olympics.

Well I don't expect any surprises in this tournament. I've watched Argentina and P. Rico and I just can't see them defeating S Korea, Japan Italy or Russia even on their off days. We'll see though....

As for Croatia, they were very weakened by pregnancies last year (Ruzic and Leto). Both are now back and playing at a very decent level. Expect them to repeat some of the success they had in the past soon...