There is less than a week left until the 12 women’s teams that will participate in the Olympic volleyball tournament are determined.
Let’s find out who is already qualified and who will have to decide their fate in the coming days. The results will be announced on June 17.
Who has already qualified for the Paris Olympics?
The selection began in September 2023. The first tickets to Paris were awarded to the two best teams in each of the three groups of the qualification tournament. Thus, the teams of Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Poland, Serbia, Turkey and the United States have already qualified directly for the 2024 Olympic Games.
France took another place as host of the tournament. It is worth recognizing that under other conditions the national team would hardly have qualified for the Games: in the world ranking, the “tricolor” team occupies only 19th place.
Thus, 7 of the 12 places are already occupied.
Which countries will be selected with privileges?
Whoever is among the last five lucky ones will determine the world ranking, which next week will be formed based on the results of the third week of the preliminary stage of the Nations League – 2024.
However, during the selection process, representatives from two parts of the world that have not yet qualified for the Games – Africa and Asia – will receive some privilege. After all, representatives of all confederations must participate in the Olympic Games.
Since none of the African countries participate in the League of Nations, their position in the ranking cannot change. Consequently, the Kenyan team will go to Paris, ranked even below France, in 20th place. This will be officially recorded on the last day of selection.
Among the Asian teams the fight is more serious. Heading into the third week of Nations League matches, Japan and China find themselves in sixth and seventh place. One of these teams (which will be higher in the ranking) will definitely go to the Games. However, everything indicates that both teams will be selected based on classification.
Who will qualify for the 2024 Olympics according to world rankings?
To understand which countries have the best chance of qualifying for the Games based on the world ranking, let’s find out how it works.
Before each match, two rival teams are compared based on the results of previous games, after which a special algorithm calculates all six outcome options (from 3:0 to 0:3). The actual result is compared with the expected one, and if the team exceeds the calculated expectations, it is awarded points for the world ranking; if not, you lose;
The official formulation seems complicated, but the essence is simple. If the favorite loses to an equal opponent, he loses some points, if he loses to an outsider, many at once. And the more he loses, the more he loses. Well, the winner gets exactly the same amount of points after the match.
If the ranking calculation were stopped now, the last four places would be occupied by the teams from Italy, Japan, China and the Netherlands.
Top 10 in the women’s world ranking as of June 11, 2024:
1. Türkiye (classified)2. Brazil (qualified)3. Poland (qualified)4. Italy5. United States (classified)6. Japan 7. China8. Serbia (qualified)9. Netherlands10. Canada
The gap between the Chinese and Dutch teams is large: 36.62 points. However, it may be difficult to lose him in four games, but it is possible. But Canada breathes behind the Dutch, who are one line higher: only 2.21 points.
The most interesting thing is that on June 14 the teams will face each other. This match will probably be decisive in the fight for the last ticket to the Olympic Games.
