Bangkok, Thailand, May 7, 2022 – Asia’s top teams of young and talented players confirmed their participation in the 14th Asian Women’s U18 Volleyball Championship in Thailand, as AVC unveiled the competition schedule on Saturday.
The top-flight championship in Nakhon Pathom, the qualification tournament for the 2023 FIVB Volleyball Girls’ U19 World Championship, is set to take place between June 6 and 13, 2022, with 11 strong teams striving for success in the eight-day meet and vying for four berths on offer for the next year’s World Championship.
As young players appear to be highly motivated and committed to deliberate practice, achievement and competitiveness, the championship with the turnout of potential wonderkids is expected to be one of the AVC’s most-watched this year. It will not only promise closely-contested encounters, but also the emergence of new talents who will look to shine in the future world-class competitions.
According to the unveiled competition schedule, all participating teams have been split into Pool A and Pool B. Uzbekistan, Korea, Australia, Iran and hosts Thailand are in Pool A, with Pool B comprising Japan, China, Chinese Taipei, Philippines, India and Kazakhstan.
Five matches will be held each day, with the first match commencing at 9am local time and the day’s last match at 7pm.
On June 6, the opening day of the biennial championship, Australia will take on Iran in the first clash, followed by the next two matches between Kazakhstan and Chinese Taipei and Philippines and India. The host outfit will kick off their campaign against Uzbekistan at 4.30pm, with China and Japan facing off in a highly-anticipated encounter at 7pm.
Teams will compete in pool round-robin preliminaries, with top two teams in each pool advancing to the cross semifinals. Teams finishing 3rd and 4th in each pool will next strut their stuff in the classification round for 5th-8th places, while those finishing 5th and 6th in each pool will fight for 9th, 10th and 11th places.
Formerly, the championship was entitled “the Asian Women’s U17 Volleyball Championship,” but in accordance with the FIVB Board of Administration Meeting on March 21-22, 2022 which announced to align the FIVB age group categories per gender to Under-19 and Under-21 for both genders, the adjustment of 2022 Age Group Championships has also been considered important for representative women’s age group teams from Asia to compete in the FIVB Age Group Championships in 2023.
And as a result, the adjustment, which will take effect only in the women’s age group category, also got the nod from the AVC Board of Administration to follow the FIVB age group categories to avoid any difficulty this may cause.
Earlier, the 14th Asian Women’s U17 Volleyball Championship was due to be hosted by Uzbekistan on the same dates, but due to some unforeseen reasons, Nakhon Pathom has replaced Tashkent as the host city of the eight-day Championship, also adjusted to Asian Women’s U18 Championship as approved by the AVC Board of Administration.
At the previous editions of the Asian Women’s U17 Championship (from now on, adjusted to Women’s U18 Championship), only China and Japan have emerged as the eventual champions. Formidable China stamped their dominance in this championship for four consecutive times (1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005), while powerhouses Japan took control in the remaining editions including seven times in a row (2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2017, 2018).
The 2020 edition was originally scheduled to be held in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand, but was cancelled due to grave concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.
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