Italian women’s volleyball takes another step towards Paris. After the defeat against Brazil, Julio Velasco’s national team immediately redeemed themselves in the Nations League by beating China 3-0 (25-23, 25-19, 25-16) in Macau. A result that earns the national team precious points for Olympic qualification (9.3 points in the world ranking) as well as third place in the general ranking of the tournament with 6 victories and 19 points. The top seven in the general ranking plus host country Thailand will advance to the Finals in Bangkok (20-23 June).
The best scorer against the Chinese was Paola Egonu with 16 points, followed by Myriam Sylla 12. Once the Macao stage is over, in the last week of play the Italian national team will be involved from 11 to 16 June in Fukuoka (Japan), where will find Canada, South Korea, the United States and Serbia on its path. “I’m really happy, we’ve taken another step towards our goal, so now maximum concentration towards the next stop in Japan”, said Egonu. “We saw a beautiful Italy: against China we confirmed the positive signs of the previous days – said Lorenzo Bernardi, one of the Argentine coach’s deputies -. We must always keep in mind that the team has been training together for two weeks, there is great potential. The group is working very well, I think we are seeing progress. There is certainly room for improvement. The points obtained are very important for Olympic qualification, which is our first real and great objective. Having said that, we must not live with the obsession of looking at the points every match, how many you win or lose, the main thing is to exploit the enormous potential of the team. In this way we can experience the Olympic qualification with more peace of mind.”
And the whole blue group is looking to the Games. “I am very happy with this victory because it helps us get even closer to Olympic qualification – said Alessia Orro -, we played a good game and after the 3-2 defeat against Brazil we saw a very determined Italy on the pitch. We were good at putting China under pressure from the start, imposing our game. We had a lot of fun and I think it showed on the outside too. We knew we had to win to get closer to the Olympics, we did it and now the objective shifts to the next one: we will go to Japan to try to win as many games as possible and get that pass, which we care so much about.”
