DOL for men’s Olympic qualifier coming up later this afternoon
The European contingent for the men’s Volleyball tournament there in London already includes Russia and Poland that finished first and second respectively at the 2011 FIVB World Cup held in Japan in late November.
The splendid “Arena Armeets” will be the venue of the competition running through next May 8-13 and which is set to be joined by the 2011 European champions of Serbia (pictured), the silver medalists of Italy, the hosts of Bulgaria, plus the winners of the three pre-qualifiers held this past November (Spain, Germany and Finland) and the two second-best ranked coming out from the same events (Slovakia and Slovenia).
The participating teams will be assigned by the DOL to two preliminary groups of 4 teams each.
The first and second ranked of the preliminary Pools will play crossed semifinals with the event being rounded out by the final match where a valuable ticket to the Olympics will be at stake.
The DOL will be carried out in such a way that the two highest-ranked teams from the last edition of the CEV Volleyball European Championship (Serbia and Italy) won’t be assigned to the same preliminary group.
Additionally, teams stemming from the same pre-qualification tournament won’t cross their ways in the prelims and will be assigned to different Pools.
