Rio 2016 spots up for grabs at ParaVolley tournament

The 2016 World ParaVolley Intercontinental may serve as a preview of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, as a majority of the qualified teams will hit the courts on Thursday (17 March) in Anji, Huzhou, China.

The competition, which runs until 23 March, features six of the qualified men’s teams and seven of the women’s team. More importantly, it is the last event for teams to qualify for Rio 2016, and one spot for each side is up for grabs.

Rio qualified teams will play against each other and non-qualified teams will play against each other (both men and women) in a separate group with a round-robin format. Then the Rio qualified teams play No. 1 finisher versus the No. 4 finishers, and the No. 2 versus the No. 3 finishers in the semi-finals. The winners from each play for the Intercontinental gold medal, while the losers will play for bronze. The non-qualified teams play No. 1 versus No. 2 at the end of the round robin, for both men and women’s.

The qualified men’s teams at the tournament are: China, Egypt, USA, Brazil, Iran and Germany.

The non-qualified men’s teams are: Ukraine, Iraq, Russia, Japan, Canada, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, South Korea and Poland.

The qualified women’s teams are the tournament are: Ukraine, Rwanda, China, Iran, Brazil, USA and Canada.

The non-qualified women’s teams are: Slovenia, Egypt, Italy, Russia, Netherlands, Japan.

More information, including a schedule of the 2016 World ParaVolley Intercontinental are available on World ParaVolley’s website.

Also follow @ParaVolley with the hashtag #WPV2016IC on Twitter.