| Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 19, 2001 |
China and Japan Vault to Excellence, with Russia Perennial Powerhouse |
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China and Japan cherish the ecstasy of taking up the center of the scene with eye-catching performances in the 2001 World Grand Champions Cup women's event, while Russia proves as a perennial powerhouse for the world women's volleyball.
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China Wins World Grand Champions Cup
China and Japan cherish the ecstasy of taking up the center of the scene with eye-catching performances in the 2001 World Grand Champions Cup women's event, while Russia proves as a perennial powerhouse for the world women's volleyball.
A young, buoyant Chinese team, which is maneuvered by the newly-appointed head coach Chen Zhonghe, vaults to the top podium of the quadrennial event for its first trophy in the world major competitions for one and a half decades.
Underdog Japan ensamples another edition of the fairy-tale as the host nation won its first medal in the world top-level competitions for 17 years after it won the bronze in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Russia was honored with the runner-up finishing and four out of eight individual awards with a veteran team, almost the same squad which won the Olympic silver, except a promising 21-year-old Ekaterina Gamova.
The 2.01m stardom spiker won the awards of the Best Scorer and the Best Blocker, only losing ground to Chinese sensation Yang Hao, who grabbed the Most Valuable Player trophy.
Russia's head coach Nikolai Karpol said he was quite satisfied with the runner-up finishing in the tournament for his team, but felt reluctant to pay tributes to China's achievement.
"China .... has a great tournament here, but Russia and Cuba are still the top two teams on the world rankings," said Karpol, the world most successive volleyball coach with two Olympic gold medals and one World Championship title under his name.
Dreamweaver Chen led China for a perfect run of five straight wins, beating Russia, the U.S. and Brazil in row to gain credit for the youths, most of whom had never played in any international competitions before April when they were recruited in the national team. The Chinese, averaging at 22.8 years old, also has an edging record against Cuba by four wins from meetings.
"Cuba is not what it usually was. We're not afraid of them," Chen said.
The 44-year-old, who started his commitment with the national team as trainer in 1979, boosted with a bunch of genius like Yang Hao, Zhao Ruirui, Feng Kun and Zhou Suhong.
Yang Hao and Zhao Ruirui, both 21, formed one of the most intimating front-court line-ups in the world, with Feng Kun, one of the best setters of the new generation worldwide, offering the best of her potential.
Japan delivered the best performance in the event after 17-year podium finishing drought though it participated in every major tournament except the 2000 Sydney Olympics. U.S. head coach, Japanese Toshiaki Yoshida said, "I've not seen the Japanese team for a long time. They have improved a lot."
Everything just falls into Japan's rhythm as the host started the astounding campaign with a 3-1 win over Brazil before it drilled for a 3-2 record.
"I could not be more satisfied with the third-place finishing," Japan's head coach Masahiro Yoshikawa said.
The Olympic silver medallists Russians were the title favorites before the competition, but they failed to live up to the expectation.
Karpol's remarks could be explained as the Russians just could not come out for their best. "We had five players (Anastasia Belikova, Elena Godina, Evguenia Artamonova, Elizaveta Tichtchenco and Ekaterina Gamova) under surgeries before the tournament, so we could not play to our best," he said.
Russia lost to China and United States with two identical 3-1s, and also making some changes on the line-up by writing off Olympians, setter Elena Vassilevskaia and striker Lioubov Chachkova.
World Grand Prix titlist U.S. suffered a lot from its cracked defense even it has Danielle Scott and Therese Crawford to carry out the offense.
The Americans, who defeated Olympic champion Cuba twice in the NORCECA championship, lost four games except a victory over the bottom South Korea.
Brazil is another example of the unstability, a shortcoming which also harassing U.S. throughout the tournament, as it could handle off U.S. 3-2 after losing 3-0 to Japan.
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