2017 Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball Championship

Iran will host the 2^nd Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball Championship and the national players of Iran mentoring by Juan Cichello is to do their best to defend their title.

Holding U23 tournaments was proposed four years ago by FIVB to promote this sport more.

The 1^st edition of Asian U23 championship that is the World Qualification tournament was held in 2015 in Myanmar where Iran entitled the gold medal.

The 2^nd edition is then held in Ardabil from 1-9 May and Iran is seeking to defend his title. The top two team will earn the berth in world qualification tournament that is to be held in Egypt on 18-26 August.

A Snapshot from the 1st Edition

The first edition of Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball Championship was hosted by Naypyidaw in Myanmar where 16 teams participated.

It was started on 11 May and lasted for 9 days that finally Iran entitled the champion while the next places went respectively to South Korea, Chinese Taipei, and China.

The head coach of the 1^st edition was Mr. Payman Akbari. Iranian players thrashed India, Qatar, and Philippines 3-0 in the preliminary round and moved up to the 2nd round as the top team of the table.

Iran lost Japan 3-0 and found his way up into the semifinal where they triumphed to beat Chinese Taipei 3-2 and become finalist while earning the world spot. Iran could finally defeat South Korea in straight and crowned the Asian Championship.

The Rivalry to Qualify for World Championship

The 2nd Asian Men’s U23 Volleyball Championship will be performed in Ardabil on May 1-9 with eleven participating teams of Iran, Chinese Taipei, China, Japan, Thailand, Australia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia.

The preliminary round will be held into four pools (three three-team pools and one two-team pool) that is as follows:

A: Iran & Pakistan

B: Chinese Taipei, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan

C: China, Australia, Malaysia

D: Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka

The preliminary round of Asian Volleyball Championship will be From Monday to Wednesday on May 1-3 with ten matches.

Iran team that is in pool A of the preliminary round has already saved a birth to the quarterfinal with the only match of Monday against Pakistan.

In the second round, the first two teams of preliminary round will be divided in pools E & F to fight for the first eight places while the three teams from the third place of each table (except from one pool) will fight for 9th to 11^th place. On Saturday, May 6, all the participating teams will rest and will then continue their rivalry the day after up to Tuesday, 9 May. The first two teams will qualify for world championship.