KOREA MEN’S VOLLEYBALL STARTS GOLD MEDAL BID WITH INDIA

Korean men’s volleyball will begin their quest for gold at the 19th Hangzhou Asian Games .The men’s team, led by Lim Do-heon, will take on India in their first Group C match at the Linping Sports Centre Gymnasium in Hangzhou, China, on Tuesday at 8pm.Men’s volleyball and football will kick off their action three days earlier than the official opening day of the Games, setting the tone for the Asian Games, the continent’s biggest festival. Korea is ranked 27th and India 73rd in the FIVB world rankings. With India out of the way, South Korea will take on Cambodia on the 21st in a light-hearted second group match. Men’s volleyball at the Asian Games features 19 teams in six groups, with the first and second place finishers in each group advancing to the round of 12.Since Lim took over the reins of the national team, the Koreans have attempted to become Asia’s most dominant team through generational change, but have repeatedly fallen short .They finished third at the 2022 FIVB Volleyball Challenger Cup in their hometown of Seoul last year and fourth at the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Cup the same year. This year, they finished third at the AVC Challenge Cup and fifth at the Asian Championships last month .Even on the Asian stage, it is difficult to reach the final, so the Asian Games will be no easy task .Korea will have to beat the top four Asian nations in the FIVB rankings – Japan (5th), Iran (11th), Qatar (17th) and home favourites China (29th) – to reach the gold medal match. If Korea finishes top of Group C, they will face the second-placed team from Group D, which includes Chinese Taipei, Pakistan and Mongolia, in the first round of the round of 12 tournament .If they win that match, they will face the favourites, Japan, in the semi-finals. Lim has added some unconventional colour to his squad with the unorthodox tactic of using Lim Dong-hyuk, who plays as an outside hitter for Korean Air, as a middle blocker, and has also developed Heo Soo-bong (Hyundai Capital) into the team’s best attacker .Eager to make amends for his failure at the Asian Championships, Lim selected the best setter in Korean professional volleyball, Han (Korean Air), and gave him the role of ‘court commander’ .Korean men’s volleyball has won three Asian Games gold medals since winning its first in Bangkok in 978.The team reached its peak with back-to-back titles in Busan in 2002 and Doha in 2006, and finished with a silver medal in Jakarta-Palembang 2018, where they were stopped by Iran. According to Hangzhou Organising Committee information site My Info, Iran will be looking to make it three in a row, following Incheon 2014 and Jakarta-Palembang 2018.Iran’s biggest rival is Japan, which has won eight gold medals, the most ever. Japan defeated Iran at the Asian Championships last month to win the title, marking a return to the top spot after a 13-year absence since Guangzhou in 2010. 카지노사이트 South Korea has won 14 medals with three gold, seven silver and four bronze.