The Vietnamese team ended the 22-year gold-medal drought in the history of the Asian Women’s Volleyball Championship
Final Day Wrap-Up
Vinh Phuc, Vietnam, May 2, 2023 – Home fans packing the Vinh Phuc Gymnasium erupted in celebration on Tuesday as Sport Center 1 underlined their supremacy over the 2023 Asian Women’s Club Volleyball Championship to become the Vietnam’s first team in history to capture the maiden title and much to the delight of fans, with remarkable unbeaten record.
The hard-fought thriller saw the Vietnamese outfits bounce back mightily to pull off stunning upset 3-2 (21-25, 17-25, 25-20, 25-22, 15-10) against last year’s bronze medallists Diamond Food Fine Chef Air-Force in the highly-anticipated final showdown before a large crowd of around 3,000 fans inside the gymnasium.
Since the tournament inception in 1999, Vietnam started sending their team to strut their stuff in the annual competition in 2001 when they first hosted the championship in Ho Chi Minh City. However, from the very beginning of their appearance in the continent’s top-tier club championship, no team from Vietnam made the podium. The best performance of Vietnamese teams in the championship dated back to 2011 when Thong tin LienVietPostBank finished fourth after 0-3 loss to Altay in the third-place playoff.
The 193cm-tall Tran Thi Thanh Thuy, who currently plays with PFU Blue Cats in Japanese V.League Division 1, scored a match high 30 points, steered Sport Center 1 to the new chapter of Vietnam’s volleyball history. Moreover, the Vietnamese team will represent Asia for the first time ever to compete in the FIVB Volleyball Women’s Club World Championship due to be held in China later this year.
En route to winning their maiden title in Vinh Phuc, Sport Center 1 stunned several strong teams consisting of Iran’ Paykan 3-2, Japan’s Hisamitsu Springs 3-1 and King Whale Taipei 3-1 in their pool play in Pool A.
The Vietnamese team continued their remarkable run by outplaying China’s Liaoning Donghua 3-1 in the semifinals to pull off upset win against Diamond Food in the final showdown.
As for Diamond Food, to pick up silver in this championship was not that bad. It was a step better than what they had achieved at the previous edition last year in Semey, Kazakhstan when they returned with bronze medal.
In the third-place playoff earlier, China’s Liaoning Donghua VC, which finished 7th at the Chinese Volleyball League current 2022/23 season, struggled hard to beat KingWhale Taipei in hard-fought four-setter 26-24, 25-20, 22-25, 25-21 to take home bronze medal, their first ever medal achieved in their debut effort in this championship.
In the classification round for 5th-9th places, teams which did not make the cut for the Top Four were all relegated to this round contesting Pool E. They comprised Japan’s Hisamitsu Springs, which landed the title in 2002 and 2014 as well as bronze medal in 2019 in China, Altay, the 2021 champions from Kazakhstan, Iran’s Paykan, Hip Hing VC from Hong Kong, China and Khuvsgul Erchim from Mongolia.
These five teams were set to compete in a pool round-robin format again, while teams from the same Pool A and Pool B which had already met in their preliminaries need not play again, but the results from the preliminaries earlier were counted for 5th-9th rankings of each participating team in Pool E.
Both Hisamitsu Springs and Altay did not lose a match in the 5th-9th ranking round in Pool E to collect 9 points apiece with similar three straight wins. The Tuesday’s match between them decided the teams to be ranked 5th and 6th places in the championship.
Hisamitsu Springs survived a scare from Altay to beat the Kazakh side with a comeback 3-2 (16-25, 25-21, 15-25, 25-18, 19-17) win for the 5th place in this championship, while Altay claimed the 6th position.
Winless Hip Hing VC from Hong Kong, China played their last match against Iran Women’s Premier League champions Paykan and succumbed to three straight-set loss 18-25, 21-25, 19-25.
Paykan finished 7th place in this championship, while Hip Hing VC finished on the bottom 9th position. The 8th place went to Khuvsgul Erchim, which completed their campaign a day earlier. Khuvsgul Erchim, the Mongolia’s first team ever to compete in this championship, had already beaten Hip Hing VC in four-setter in their Pool B earlier.
The awards presentation was held shortly after the end of the final clash, with several hi-ranking officials of Vinh Phuc as well as key persons from the Volleyball Federation of Vietnam including Co-Chairman of the Organizing Committee Mr Tran Duc Phan, himself VFV Vice President, in attendance.
Sport Center 1 from Vietnam landed the Champions Trophy plus gold medals, while Diamond Food from Thailand and China’s Liaoning Donghua also received Trophies plus silver and bronze medals as first and second runners-up respectively. Those who won Individual Awards received bouquets of flowers and plaques. After that, photo opportunity was open for the medias and volleyball fans.
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