Rio Olympics Women's Indoor pools announced - Articles

No one said it would be easy and it won’t be as Team USA learned it will be in a first-round Olympics pool in Rio with China, Serbia, Italy, the Netherlands and Puerto Rico.The other pool includes Brazil, Russia, Japan, Korea, Argentina and Cameroon. The Olympics are August 6-21. The 12 qualifiers are divided into two pools of six teams. The top four teams in each pool will advance to the elimination rounds. Brazil is automatically seeded first in Pool A as the host country. The listing of the pools and the resumes of the teams follow. “We have some things that we need to improve; every program identifies some things that we have to get better at,” USA women’s coach Karch Kiraly told Volleyball earlier this month. “Serving and passing are big issues for us; they are always big focal points.” His team is in action Friday with another Red-Blue intrasquad scrimmage at Santiago College. Then the women play in the FIVB World Grand Prix in Ningbo, China, against Germany on June 10, against Thailand on June 11 and China June 12. “We are a team that plays fast. That plays like a second family. That has fun while competing ferociously and has a lot of fortitude and grit when it comes to adverse situations, obstacles, and challenges, which we know will arise in volleyball, as they do in life,” Kiraly said. The Grand Prix moves to Long Beach, Calif., where the U.S. plays Germany on June 17 before the June 18 matchup with Japan...

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