2018 Sitting Volleyball Worlds: 5 things to know

It is a year of major championships across Para sport in 2018 and the Sitting Volleyball World Championships will be one of the highlights of a busy summer. Check out five things you should know about this year’s tournament.

1. The Netherlands Volleyball Association will host the event between 15 and 22 July, with matches being contested across different cities and the men’s and women’s finals taking place in The Hague.

2. This will be the fifth time that the Netherlands stages the World Championships, following Delden in 1993, Assen in 1990, Maastricht in 2000 and Roermond in 2006.

3. Sixteen male and 16 female teams will take part in the competition, but not all the countries involved are confirmed yet. The host nation qualifies automatically, as does Japan for staging the 2020 Paralympics and Rio 2016 gold medallists Iran (men) and USA (women). They will be joined by three European teams, two from the Americas, Asia and Africa, one through the World Rankings who has not yet qualified and the remaining one through a qualification event in early 2018.

4. Bosnia & Herzegovina are the defending champions among men and will start again as strong contenders for gold, trying to take revenge on Iran after losing out to them in the final at last year's Paralympic Games.

5. In the women’s tournament a thrilling showdown is expected between defending champions China, who topped the podium in Elblag, Poland, in 2014, and Paralympic gold medallists USA, who defeated the Chinese team in the final at Rio 2016.

More information is available on World ParaVolley's website.