Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 7, 2016 - Argentina and Iran are the last two teams to test out the Olympic volleyball court in an official Rio 2016 game. They will face each other on Sunday in the last match of the first competition day in the men’s tournament.
Argentina secured their spot at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games by winning the CSV South American Continental Olympic Qualification Tournament in Caracas, Venezuela in October 2015.
Iran also claimed their continental quota from AVC by finishing the FIVB Volleyball World Olympic Qualification Tournament in Tokyo, Japan as the best ranked Asian team.
For Iran, playing at Rio 2016 is already a historic success, since they had never made it to the Olympic Games before.
Argentina, on the other hand, have six Olympic participations behind them and even a bronze medal from the Seoul 1988 Games. At London 2012, the South American squad finished fifth.
The most recent encounter between Argentina and Iran occurred in an FIVB Volleyball World League 2016 match. On July 3, in Dallas, USA, the Asian team claimed a 3-2 (25-23, 22-25, 21-25, 25-22, 16-14) victory. They also met earlier in the competition and that game went into five sets as well. On June 18, in Rio de Janeiro, the Iranians achieved a 3-2 (25-22, 25-20, 21-25, 13-25, 15-11) win.
FIVB Volleyball World Cup 2015 and FIVB Volleyball World Championship 2014 also featured matches between these two sides. Argentina beat Iran by 3-1 (25-27, 25-22, 25-22, 26-24) on September 8, 2015 in Hamamatsu, Japan, and Iran shut out Argentina by 3-0 (25-15, 25-23, 25-16) on September 11, 2014 in Bydgoszcz,Poland.