Lausanne, 2nd October 2007 – The drawing of lots of the FIVB World Cup 2007 were held today in Tokyo. The complete calendar is on line on the official FIVB web-site (www.fivb.org). The time schedule will be fixed in the next few days by the broadcaster Fuji Television and the organizers, Japanese Volleyball Association.
The draw was conducted by Takako Shirai, Olympic gold medallist in Montreal 1976, and by Kenji Shimaoka, an Olympic champion in Munich in 1972, and supervised by FIVB Executive First Vice President Wei Jizhong. JVA President Masao Tachiki welcomed the guests to the function.
The 12 teams for the women's and men's events will play a round-robin competition over four phases, with two venues in operation on each day. The top three teams will qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
In the absence of these two giants, recently-crowned European champions Italy and South American champions Brazil will be among the favourites to grab two of the three tickets to Beijing. Cuba, USA, Poland and Serbia will also fancy their chances.
The calendars web link: http://www.fivb.org/EN/volleyball/competitions/WorldCup/2007/Men http://www.fivb.org/EN/volleyball/competitions/WorldCup/2007/Women |