TEAM COMPOSITION

Following disappointing results in recent years, China appointed former international star and USA coach “Jenny” Lang Ping in April 2013 to lead one of women’s volleyball’s most successful countries into a new era. Immediately, Ping recruited youth to be a part of the team which is focused on building towards Rio 2106 however, as a sign on her strong standing in the game at home, many of the key members of the Chinese team at London 2012 have stayed on in the squad. Although the players have shuffled their shirt numbers, only captain Qiuyue Wei is absent from the London 2012 line up with China’s most valuable and experienced player in recent years Yimei Wang still in the squad alongside Ruoqi Hui, Junjing Yang, Yunwen Ma, Lei Zhang  and libero Xian Zhang. 

Historically China have been one of the best teams in the world having won gold medals at the 1981 World Cup, 1982 World Championships, 1984 Olympic Games, 1985 World Cup and 1986 World Championships, becoming the world's first team to be crowned the winner of the major annual tournament for five consecutive years. However, since then China’s only success has come in the way of gold at the 2003 World Cup and 2004 Olympic Games.

Since then, the road has been a bumpy one with a World Grand Prix bronze medal in 2005 and a silver medal in 2007 followed by an Olympic Games bronze medal on home soil in 2008 accompanied by some inconsistent performances.

More recently, with the world No. 5 heavily dependent on the scoring exploits of master attacker Wang, they won the Asian Champions Cup and the Asian Games in 2010 but finished 10th at the Women’s World Championship. A number of new players helped China book a place at the London 2012 Olympic Games by taking bronze at the 2011 FIVB World Cup. Last year China finished fifth at the World Grand Prix, after winning one match against Cuba in the Finals on home soil in Ningbo, and the London Olympics in 2012 after losing to Japan for the first time in 11 years at FIVB level in the quarterfinals.

China finished the China International Women’s Volleyball Tournament in May unbeaten against Cuba, Thailand and Puerto Rico before a second-string Chinese side finished sixth at the Montreux VolleyMasters in June.