Secure the Tickets for the Olympics

Korean men and women volleyball teams will play at the 2003 World Cup Volleyball Games, held in Japan from November 1, to secure the advancement to the Athens Olympics next year.

12 teams consisting of the first or second place teams from each continent will play in the full league and the top three teams will be automatically qualified for the Olympics. Korea hopes its women’s team, the number 7th ranked as determined by Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), will move on to the Olympics.

Having been the third best team three times in a row from 1973 until 1977 and fourth in 1999 at the World Cup Volleyball Games, the Korean women’s team depends on its members’ spiritual strengths. The team has Jang So-youn (29, Hyundai Construction Co.), who won the MVP in the super league of Korea last year and had retired from the team, come back in the center position and chose Choi Kwang-hee (29, KT&G) as the captain of the team. Including the indisputable center player Kang Hye-mi (Hyundai Construction Co.), all of the three star players are veterans at the age of 29. With their experiences, the team placed rookie Chung Dae-young (1m 83cm) at the center to make the blocking wall firmer and experienced Rhee Myung-hee (Hyundai Construction Co.) as the right attacker, seeking the balance between the old and the new.

The Korean team will play in the opening game against the world’s first ranked U.S. team at Yoyogi Stadium in Tokyo on November 1.

But the odds for the men’s team do not seem good. The men’s team won the championship at the Daegu Universiade, Asian-Cup Games and Asia Challenge Cup Games consecutively, but the red light was turned on as the star players were not able to join the team. The reason was due to Kim Se-jin and Shin Jin-sik (both from Samsung Fire Insurance Co.), who had taken the left and right attacker positions, were not included due to injury and the military training respectively, and the big-gun Rhee Kyung-soo (LG Fire Insurance Co.) could not join because of military training for the exemption from the duty of military service for four weeks.

From November 16, the men’s team will play against Brazil, Tunisia, Italy, France, Venezuela, Serbia and Montenegro, U.S., Japan, Egypt, China, and Canada continuously.

Sang-Ho Kim hyangsan@donga.com