14th august 2008
Beijing (CHN)


The Olympic tournament is commonly considered the toughest and most important competition.

From the pure technical perspective, the World Championship (WC) is more demanding than Olympic Games (OG) because of twenty four participating squads rather than twelve. Due to the Country Quote, which was introduced to guarantee the participation of teams coming from each continents, some very good national teams (mostly from Europe) have failed to qualify.

Notwithstanding, I keep on considering the OG tournament the most complicated indeed.

First of all: the National Federations start to plan the OG four years before. The coaches set out the technical programs aiming to peak at the OG (obviously without ignoring the WC) but sometimes their choices take also in consideration the age of the players .
As a matter of fact, many experienced athletes quit just after the OG competition, replaced by the younger players.

Then the Olympics, involving a lot of sports, turn to be the most important sport event ever. The pressure grows a lot and athletes of all disciplines (also the less popular) have to deal with plenty of journalists coming from other sports. That’s why the players need an extra attention to manage their statements which could be misunderstood from reporters unfamiliar with those discipline.

Now, I go over the main specific points which make Volleyball Olympic Games different form any other competition.
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- The match’s schedule contemplates one match every second day, rather than one per day (as usual in the WC or Continental competitions). In these conditions is definitely more difficult to find the right rhythm and longer time between the games to recover the weariness, isn’t such a big advantage. Volleyball is an aerobic sport and the athletes recuperate quickly.

- During the day off the teams can practice only one time due to the truly complex Olympic organization necessary to satisfy the requests of all the sports. For these reasons the biggest National Federation long before search for a private training center to decide without restraint the training calendar.

- Lastly, the biggest problem is dealing with the Olympic Village life style.


I have to say that few places in the world are more exciting than the Olympic Village but, this doesn’t mean that those are the best conditions to perform at the best. Usually the Olympic Villages are pretty big and moving inside the village takes a lot of time. For instance, in 1988 in Seoul, we had to walk to reach the gates, lodges, canteens or the internal gyms. In 1992 in Barcellona we could count on much faster bicycles, and in 1996 the OG in Atlanta, there were many golf cars and small buses.
In all the OG I took part, the refectories were plenty of athletes and it was necessary to wait in long line to get the food

But I have written above that Olympic Village is exciting and now I explain why.

The most part of the athletes aims only to participate not to win. Therefore, after having taken part at the preliminary round, they enjoy the Village like a unique opportunity to meet a lot of friends and to party.
Could you imagine how difficult it is for the Volleyball players to stay focused avoiding any distractions.
By the way, Volleyball medals are assigned the last day of the OG when the majority of the athletes is enjoying the Olympic village!


Believe me, participating in the OG is truly a dream, but compared to the professional quite atmosphere distinguishing the teams' hotels during a WC, the joyful and festive Olympic ambiance makes everything much tougher.

Bye bey andrea zorzi