Hangzhou, China, June 29, 2023 – The 1st Asian Women’s U16 Volleyball Championship will take place in Hangzhou from July 1 to 8. The championship serves not only as the Qualification Tournament for the 2024 FIVB Volleyball Women’s U17 World Championship, but also the test event for the coming Asian Games volleyball tournament.
Due to the withdrawal of India for their NOC reasons, a total number of 11 teams will compete in the championship. They are divided into 4 pools for a 3-day round robin preliminaries. Pool A includes hosts China, Mongolia and Uzbekistan, while Pool B is composed of Japan, Australia and Iran.
Thailand, Hong Kong China and Kazakhstan are grouped in Pool C, seeing only Chinese Taipei and Macao, China in Pool D. After the preliminaries, the top 2 teams of each pool will advance to the top 8 for a 2-day classification phase before the semifinals. The classification phase will play in two pools.
Top 2 teams of Pool A and C will be regrouped in Pool E with top 2 teams of Pool B and D in Pool F. The final showdown will be staged on July 8th, and top three teams of the championship will secure their berths for the next year’s FIVB Volleyball Girl’s U17 World Championship.
In order to run the championship smoothly, the Control Committee Meeting was held on Thursday morning at the Asian Games Village after the arrival of all the members Wednesday. Mr. Shanrit Wongprasert, AVC Executive Director and AVC Coordinator for this championship, extended his gratitude, on behalf of AVC President Mrs Rita Subowo, to all the Control Committee Members coming for helping organize the championship.
Technical Delegate Dr Eom Han-Joo confirmed the schedule of the competition activities to make sure everyone is on the same page. Following the meeting, all members were separated into 4 groups to make the inspection of the 4 competition venues: Linping Sports Centre Gymnasium, China Textile City Sports Centre Gymnasium, Deqing Sports Centre Gymnasium and Hangzhou Normal University Cangqian Gynasium.
“The venue is very good. All facilities are new and well equipped.” said Kuang Qi, head coach of China. “Our team have been training together for 40 days before we came here and we have been well prepared for the championship. As the host, we are aiming to qualify for the World Championship at the first time and then to win the gold.”
The preliminary inquiry was also held Thursday evening for 9 participating teams except Thailand and Chinese Taipei, which will have it done next morning due to their late arrival.
“Our team is composed of students from different middle school in Hong Kong, China. They have played volleyball for many years and participated in many competitions since the primary school. I hope we can qualify from the pool play to top 8,” said YIP Po Lam, head coach of Hong Kong, China.
“We have had three opportunities to train for the championship, in December last year, April this year and two weeks before coming here. But we have sent them home to train and to get ready for the competition,” said Rachael Georgieff, head coach of Australia.
“The championship is the first edition. We are here to experience it and also i think it is a good exposure for Australia to be a part of this competition.”
All the participating teams will have their orientation and pre-championship training these two days while the technical officials and referees are also taking time to get prepared, including scheduled VIS clinic, referee theory clinic and practice, for the open of the championship on July 1.
China will take on Mongolia in their opening encounter, while Japan play Australia and Thailand meet Hong Kong China.
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