Olympic Qualifier Tournament Host Countries Revealed

LUSANNE, Switzerland, March 8, 2023.- Volleyball World and the FIVB have confirmed the remaining hosts of the FIVB Road to Paris Volleyball Qualifier events set for later this year with Brazil, China and Poland joining Japan in welcoming the world’s best teams who will be fiercely competing for a place at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

China, Japan and Poland will stage the women’s event from September 16-24, while Brazil, China and Japan are set to host the men’s Olympic Qualification Tournaments from  September 30 to  October 8 2023. These countries will welcome the volleyball elite teams to battle for the highly in demand spots for the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

The pools will be defined during the Drawing of Lots ceremony which will be hosted in Lausanne, Switzerland at 13:00 CET on March 17 and broadcast live all over the world. The broadcast will be streamed LIVE on Volleyball World's Youtube channel.

FIVB President Dr Ary S. Graça F° said: “I am delighted to see such a high-profile line-up of hosts secured for the Olympic Qualification Tournaments this year. All hosts have impressive credentials and will warmly welcome the athletes for these highly-anticipated qualifiers. I am sure all six events will serve as a great celebration for our sport and fans with 24 top teams competing for six Olympic tickets.”

Volleyball World CEO Finn Taylor said: “Brazil, China, Japan and Poland are huge markets for our sport. We know very well how passionate their fans are about volleyball and we are delighted to bring even more exciting volleyball action to these countries. These events will be hotly contested with the teams bringing their all to the court as they look to book their places at Paris 2024. We are looking forward to witnessing the incredible talent of the athletes and bringing this action to the fans.”

OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION EXPLAINED

Twelve teams per gender will participate in the Olympic volleyball competition at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. As the host nation, France, the current men’s Olympic volleyball champions, has secured its place in both the men’s and women’s competitions. The other 11 quota places per gender will be allocated via a two-step qualification process that ensures the best volleyball nations can participate at the event while observing the principle of universality.

In particular,  six Olympic quota places per gender will be contested during the Olympic Qualification Tournaments where the top 24 teams as per the FIVB Volleyball Senior World Ranking (WR) not yet qualified will be split into three pools of eight teams. The top two teams of each pool will then qualify for Paris 2024.

The remaining five Olympic places per gender will be filled by selecting the top five not yet qualified teams in the FIVB WR as of the end of the preliminary phase of the Volleyball Nations League 2024. To guarantee the principle of universality, these teams will be selected as per the following order of priority: 1) The team(s) from a continent(s) without a qualified team(s) and 2) Top team(s) not yet qualified.

Read more about the Road to Paris 2024 here.