FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship

FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship

Current season, competition or edition: 2014 FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship
Sport	Volleyball
Founded	1949
Inaugural season	1949
CEO	Ary Graça
No. of teams	24 (Finals)
Continent	International (FIVB)
Most recent champion(s)	Poland (2nd title)
Most titles	Russia (6 titles)
Official website	FIVB Volleyball World Championships

The FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship is an international volleyball competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. The initial gap between championships was variable, but since 1962 they have been awarded every four years. The current champion is Poland, which won its second title at the 2014 tournament in home soil.

The current format of the competition involves a qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase, which is often called the World Championship Finals. 24 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation(s), compete in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month.

The 18 World Championship tournaments have been won by seven different national teams. Russia (as Soviet Union) have won six times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. The other World Championship winners are Brazil and Italy, with three titles each; Czech Republic as (Czechoslovakia) and Poland, with two titles each; and Germany as (East Germany), and United States, with one title each.

The 2014 World Championship took place in Poland. The next World Championship will be co-hosted by Italy and Bulgaria in 2018.

History

Origins

The history of the World Championship goes back to the beginnings of volleyball as a professional, high level sport. One of the first concrete measures taken by the FIVB after its foundation in 1947 was the establishment of an international competition involving teams from more than one continent. In 1949, the first edition was played in Prague, Czechoslovakia. At that point, the tournament was still restricted to Europe.

Three years later, the event was expanded to include nations from Asia, and began to be held in 4-year cycles. By the following edition, there were also teams from South, Central and North America.

Since volleyball was to be added to the Olympic Program in 1964, the 4-cycles were advanced in 2 years after the fourth edition (1960), so that the World Championship may alternate with the Summer Olympic Games. As of 1970, teams from Africa also took part in the competition, and the original goal of having members from all five continental confederations in the games was achieved.

The number of teams involved in the games has changed significantly over the years. Following volleyball's increase in popularity, they raised steadily to over 20 in the 1970s and part of the 1980s, were then cut short to 16 in the 1990s, and finally set up in 24 after 2002. Today, the World Championship is the most comprehensive of all events organized by the FIVB, and arguably the second most important, surpassed in prestige only by the Olympic Games.

Until 1974, the host nation of the tournament organized both the men's and the women's events, with the single exception of the 1966/1967 games, which took place in different years. Since 1978, this practice has been only occasionally observed, for instance, in 1998 and in the 2006 edition, which was held, as the former was, in Japan.

Winners

The history of the World Championship clearly demonstrates how volleyball was originally dominated by European nations.

The first two editions were won by the Soviet Union. In 1956, twice runner-up Czechoslovakia took the gold. There followed two more consecutive wins for the Soviet Union, in both cases over Czechoslovakia. The Czechs won a gold medal in the 1966 edition.

In 1970, East Germany prevailed over Bulgaria for their first and only title. In 1974, the Soviet Union threatened to take the lead once more, but ended up being defeated by Poland at the final. Nevertheless, they would confirm their leadership by winning, for the third time, two editions in a row.

1986 saw the first relevant confrontation between United States, the rising major force of the decade, and the traditional leader Soviet Union after the Olympic boycotts of 1980 and 1984. As would be the case two years later at the Seoul Olympic Games, the issue was settled in favour of the Americans led by Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons. Italy completely dominated the competition in the 1990s, winning all the editions that took place in this decade (1990, 1994, 1998), led by such players as Lorenzo Bernardi and Andrea Giani.

In the 2000s, Brazil became the leading force in the sport, winning three consecutive editions (2002, 2006 and 2010), the first of which in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the same stage where the Brazilians had been runners-up in 1982. In 2014, Poland, playing in home, defeated Brazil in 4 sets at the final achieving their second gold medal and preventing what would be a historical fourth title in a row.

As of 2014, 18 editions of the men's Volleyball World Championship have been played: 14 went to European teams, and four to American teams (three times to Brazil and once to United States).

Competition formula

The competition formula of the FIVB World Championship has been constantly changed to fit the different number of teams that participate in each edition. The following rules usually apply:

• Twenty-four teams participate in each event.
• Qualification procedures for the World Championship are long and strenuous, lasting over two years.
• Host nations are always pre-qualified.
• The number of spots available per confederation is determined by the FIVB: Europe has usually the highest, and Africa or South America the lowest.
• To participate in the event, a team must survive a number of qualification tournaments depending on its position in the FIVB World Rankings. Low-ranked teams may have to engage in up to three tournaments to be granted a berth; high-ranked teams typically play only one.
• The competition is divided in at least two phases: a preliminary round and a final round. Depending on the number of participating teams, one or more intermediary rounds may also be required.
• In the preliminary round, teams are organized in pools. Each team plays one match against all other teams in its pool.
• When all the matches of the preliminary round have been played, the top n teams in each pool qualify for the following round(s), and the remaining ones leave the competition. The value of n depends on the number of participating teams and the format that will be employed in the finals.
• The FIVB has tried various different formats for the final round(s). For some years now (2004), there seems to be a consensus that at least semifinals and finals must be played according to the Olympic format.
• Quarterfinals may consist of groups of teams playing against each other, or of direct confrontation; in the latter case additional intermediary rounds might be required to reduce the number of surviving teams to eight.
• The tournament implements very tight line-up restrictions: only twelve players are allowed, and no replacement is permitted, even in case of injuries.

Results summary

Year	Host		Final				3rd place match				Teams
			Champions	Score	Runners-up		3rd place	Score	4th place
1949 Details	Czechoslovakia		Soviet Union	Round-robin	Czechoslovakia		Bulgaria	Round-robin	Romania		10
1952 Details	Soviet Union		Soviet Union	Round-robin	Czechoslovakia		Bulgaria	Round-robin	Romania		11
1956 Details	France		Czechoslovakia	Round-robin	Romania		Soviet Union	Round-robin	Poland		20
1960 Details	Brazil		Soviet Union	Round-robin	Czechoslovakia		Romania	Round-robin	Poland		14
1962 Details	Soviet Union		Soviet Union	Round-robin	Czechoslovakia		Romania	Round-robin	Bulgaria		21
1966 Details	Czechoslovakia		Czechoslovakia	Round-robin	Romania		Soviet Union	Round-robin	East Germany		22
1970 Details	Bulgaria		East Germany	Round-robin	Bulgaria		Japan	Round-robin	Czechoslovakia		24
1974 Details	Mexico		Poland	Round-robin	Soviet Union		Japan	Round-robin	East Germany		24
1978 Details	Italy		Soviet Union	3–0	Italy		Cuba	3–1	South Korea		24
1982 Details	Argentina		Soviet Union	3–0	Brazil		Argentina	3–0	Japan		24
1986 Details	France		United States	3–1	Soviet Union		Bulgaria	3–0	Brazil		16
1990 Details	Brazil		Italy	3–1	Cuba		Soviet Union	3–0	Brazil		16
1994 Details	Greece		Italy	3–1	Netherlands		United States	3–1	Cuba		16
1998 Details	Japan		Italy	3–0	Yugoslavia		Cuba	3–1	Brazil		24
2002 Details	Argentina		Brazil	3–2	Russia		France	3–0	Yugoslavia		24
2006 Details	Japan		Brazil	3–0	Poland		Bulgaria	3–1	Serbia and Montenegro		24
2010 Details	Italy		Brazil	3–0	Cuba		Serbia	3–1	Italy		24
2014 Details	Poland		Poland	3–1	Brazil		Germany	3–0	France		24
2018 Details	/ Italy / Bulgaria										24

Hosts

Times Hosted	Nations (Year(s))
3	Italy (1978, 2010, 2018*)
2	Argentina (1982, 2002)  Brazil (1960, 1990)  Bulgaria (1970, 2018*)  Czechoslovakia (1949, 1966)  France (1956, 1986)  Japan (1998, 2006)  Soviet Union (1952, 1962)
1	Greece (1994)  Mexico (1974)  Poland (2014)

* = co-hosts.

Medals Summary

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Russia[upper-alpha 1]	6	3	3	12
2	Brazil	3	2	0	5
3	Italy	3	1	0	4
4	Czech Republic[upper-alpha 2]	2	4	0	6
5	Poland	2	1	0	3
6	Germany[upper-alpha 3]	1	0	1	2
	United States	1	0	1	2
8	Cuba	0	2	2	4
	Romania	0	2	2	4
10	Bulgaria	0	1	4	5
11	Serbia[upper-alpha 4]	0	1	1	2
12	Netherlands	0	1	0	1
13	Japan	0	0	2	2
14	Argentina	0	0	1	1
	France	0	0	1	1
Total		18	18	18	54

MVP by edition

• 1949–78 – Not awarded ^[1]
• 1982 – Unknown
• 1986 –  Philippe Blain (FRA)
• 1990 –  Andrea Lucchetta (ITA)
• 1994 –  Lorenzo Bernardi (ITA)
• 1998 –  Rafael Pascual (ESP)
• 2002 –  Marcos Milinkovic (ARG)
• 2006 –  Giba (BRA)
• 2010 –  Murilo Endres (BRA)
• 2014 –  Mariusz Wlazły (POL)
• 2018 –

See also

• Volleyball at the Summer Olympics
• FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship
• FIVB Volleyball Men's World Cup
• FIVB Volleyball World Grand Champions Cup
• FIVB Volleyball World League
• FIVB Volleyball Men's U23 World Championship
• FIVB Volleyball Men's U21 World Championship
• FIVB Volleyball Boys' U19 World Championship
• List of Indoor Volleyball World Champions
• List of Indoor Volleyball World Medalists

Notes

References

External links

• FIVB
• Volleyball World Championship History

FIVB Volleyball World Championship
Men's	Tournaments Czechoslovakia 1949 Soviet Union 1952 France 1956 Brazil 1960 Soviet Union 1962 Czechoslovakia 1966 Bulgaria 1970 Mexico 1974 Italy 1978 Argentina 1982 France 1986 Brazil 1990 Greece 1994 Japan 1998 Argentina 2002 Japan 2006 Italy 2010 Poland 2014 Italy/Bulgaria 2018 Qualification 1949 1952 1956 1960 1962 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 Squads 1949 1952 1956 1960 1962 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018
Women's	Tournaments Soviet Union 1952 France 1956 Brazil 1960 Soviet Union 1962 Japan 1967 Bulgaria 1970 Mexico 1974 Soviet Union 1978 Peru 1982 Czechoslovakia 1986 China 1990 Brazil 1994 Japan 1998 Germany 2002 Japan 2006 Japan 2010 Italy 2014 Japan 2018 Qualification 1952 1956 1960 1962 1967 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 Squads 1952 1956 1960 1962 1967 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018
National team appearances (Men's – Women's)