Unstoppable Brazil will be seeking their fourth consecutive
title at the FIVB World Grand Prix final round while a changing
Chinese squad is hoping a quick return from growing pain after
personnel transition.
Brazil, Italy, Russia, Poland and the Netherlands plus host
China will be playing in the grueling tournament slated in Ningbo,
China from August 22-26.
Like always, the pre-competition press conference on Tuesday was
but a formality with most of the team coaches playing down title
winning prospects.
Brazilian coach Jose Roberto Guimaraes kept a low key as usual,
saying that the team will try to do the best in the final
round.
After the 52-year-old coach took over in 2003, the Brazilian
team has been on an uprising road, winning 13 gold medals out of 16
major tournaments.
Besides, Brazil is the main conqueror of the FIVB Grand Prix,
with six wins (1994, 1996, 1998, 2004, 2005 and 2006). Now
finishing atop on the general rankings after three weeks'
preliminaries in this year's edition, Brazil emerged as the
heaviest favorite for the 2007 title.
Being the host, Chinese head coach Chen Zhonghe was thrown the
most questions at the conference.
"Our team is very young and always had ups and downs in the
first three weeks' playing. Besides, the veteran players could not
contribute to the team due to plummeting form or injury," the
50-year-old coach said when asked to comment on his team's
performance.
"If we were not the host, it would be impossible to play in the
finals this year."
China, failing to pick title at any Grand Prix preliminary leg
for the first time in the past four years, is feeling the growing
pain of personnel transition after finishing in a mere eighth place
with four wins against five losses.
"We lost to Russia, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands in the
preliminaries. They are all strong teams but we have to put blame
on ourselves," he said.
"We had problems delivering effective offense, picking off less
scores than other strong teams in attacking and counter-attack, and
our serving and blocking are not convincing either. So our ranking
conforms with our performance."
The main injuries of the China squad come from wing spiker Wang
Yimei, middle blocker Zhao Ruirui, setter Feng Kun and libero Zhang
Na, who all came to Ningbo to watch the games.
Poland coach Marco Bonitta said he was very happy to lead Poland
into the elite tournament. "It's the first time for Poland to enter
the final six of the elite tournament. We are happy to play here
and will give all out," he said at the press conference.
The Polish team, which lost all three matches on its home soil
in the opening round, was fully fired-up in the remaining two
rounds under some magic build-up from Bonitta, the former head
coach of Italy.
At the six-strong conference, the only coach who was able to
give bold and straight answer was Russia's coach Giovanni Caprara,
who commented that Russia is the strongest team of all playing
here.
Russia, who had been hoping for a fourth title at the
tournament, finished third behind Brazil and Italy after the
preliminaries. They lost 3-1 to the Brazilians in last year's
final.
(Xinhua News Agency August 22, 2007)