Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 6, 2016 - China will face the Netherlands on the first day of the Olympic volleyball tournament at Rio 2016. They will meet on Saturday to open the competition in women’s Pool B, also featuring the teams of Italy, Puerto Rico, Serbia and USA.
China have been consistently present at the women’s volleyball Olympic tournaments since their successful debut at Los Angeles 1984 when they won gold. The second Olympic gold on their record comes from Athens 2004. In their eight participations, China have also managed to claim one silver (Atlanta 1996) and two bronze (Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008) medals. They finished fifth four years ago at London 2012.
China earned their rightful spot at Rio 2016 as the winner of FIVB Volleyball World Cup 2015.
Rio 2016 is only the third time the Dutch women’s national team will play at the Olympic Games. The Netherlands finished sixth at Barcelona 1992 and fifth four years later at Atlanta 1996.
The Dutch qualified for Rio by finishing second at the World Olympic Qualification Tournament in Tokyo earlier this year.
Most recently, China and the Netherlands met at the FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix 2016 finals in Bangkok. On July 7, the European side managed a hard-fought 3-2 (23-25, 25-14, 19-25, 25-20, 15-8) victory over their Asian opponents.