On Friday, Polish volleyball teams will meet their rivals in qualifying for the Paris Olympics. The women’s promotion tournament will be played at home. The gentlemen will go to Brazil, China or Japan.

The three women’s tournaments will be played from September 16-24. The locations are: Poland, China and Japan. The Asians will also host two of the three men’s events, which start on September 30 and end on October 8. The third will take place in Brazil.

At the end of last year, the Polish Volleyball Association also expressed their desire to organize two tournaments, but in the end we only got women’s qualifications. We were determined to get this tournament. We accepted the conditions that were offered to us. Apparently, other federations had less of this determination. Anyway, I think it’s our success, because another important volleyball tournament will be held in Poland – says Sebastian Świderski.

The PZPS president adds that the union has had preliminary discussions with the city that will host the event, but does not want to give details yet.

The 24 national teams best ranked in the FIVB ranking will participate in the race for the Olympics, excluding the French teams, some of their performance in Paris, and the Russian teams, currently excluded from international competitions.

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Eight teams will play in each tournament, with the top two teams qualifying for the Olympics. The composition of each group will be announced on Friday, after the draw, which will take place in Lausanne.

During the draw, the teams will be divided into three-team pots, arranged according to the FIVB ranking. The exception is the first pot, which will contain the hosts, seeded in the draw from first to third position. The host with the highest place in the ranking will go to Group A, with the lowest in Group C. Therefore, we already know that the Polish women’s team will be in Group C of the women’s qualifier.

For the men’s national teams, the baskets will be as follows.

Basket 1 (guests): Brazil (ranked 4th in FIVB, moves to Group A), Japan (7th, Group B), China (26th, Group C)
Basket 2: Poland (1), Italy (2), United States (6)
Basket 3: Argentina (8), Slovenia (9), Iran (10)
Basket 4: Serbia (11), Cuba (12), Netherlands (13)
Basket 5: Turkey (14), Canada (15), Ukraine (16)
Basket 6: Germany (17), Mexico (18), Tunisia (19)
Basket 7: Egypt (20), Belgium (21), Czech Republic (22)
Basket 8: Bulgaria (23), Finland (24), Qatar (25).

Coach Nikola Grbic’s team would certainly rather go to Japan or China than Brazil. Only playing in South America, the Whites and Reds would not be the main favorites for the qualifying tournament. Although, of course, there is no shortage of dangerous rivals in the baskets from third to eighth.

And here is the distribution in baskets in the draw of the women’s tournaments:

Basket 1 (guests): China (5), Japan (6), Poland (10)
Basket 2: Serbia (1), Italy (2), Brazil (3)
Basket 3: United States (4), Turkey (7), Dominican Republic (9)
Basket 4: Belgium (11), Netherlands (12), Germany (13)
Basket 5: Canada (14), Thailand (15), Bulgaria (16)
Basket 6: Puerto Rico (17), Czech Republic (18), Colombia (19)
Basket 7: Mexico (20), Argentina (22), South Korea (23)
Basket 8: Ukraine (24), Slovenia (25), Peru (26).

In the case of Stefano Lavarini’s team, it is certain to hit at least one absolute world top rival. The third basket opponent will be key – the Americans seem to be the most demanding and it would be good to avoid them. Either way, to win promotion, Polish women will need to beat at least one higher-ranked team and avoid slip-ups with lower-ranked teams.

Home advantage should help them do that. Just as he helped last fall at the World Cup, when Biało-Czerwone managed to win 3:0 with the Americans and draw level with the Serbs in the quarter-finals lost 2:3.

– We believe in girls. We also believe in our fans and we sincerely hope that they will help the team by creating an atmosphere like in the championships. Our national team has a difficult task ahead of them, but playing in front of their own fans will certainly make it easier for them – Świderski points out.

Teams that don’t earn promotion this year will have one more path to the Olympics – ranking. After the 2024 intercontinental phase of the Nations League, the five highest-ranked FIVB men’s and women’s teams will each compete in the Olympic tournaments.

The draw for the qualification tournaments for the Tokyo Olympics will be available on the Volleyball World YouTube channel. The broadcast begins Friday at 1:00 p.m.

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