150px The 1980 Women's Olympic Volleyball Tournament was the 5th edition of the event, organized by the world's governing body, the FIVB in conjunction with the

IOC The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

. It was held in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

from 21 to 29 July 1980.

Qualification

* Notes: :1. United States was the 1979 NORCECA Championship runners-up (champions Cuba, were already qualified as World champions), but together with China (1979 Asian champion), Japan (1976 Olympic champion) and other countries, boycotted the games. :2. Brazil, Bulgaria and Hungary replaced China, Japan and the United States.

Format

The tournament was played in two different stages. In the (first stage), the eight participants were divided into two pools of four teams. A single round-robin format was played within each pool to determine the teams position in the pool. The (second stage) was played in a single elimination format, where the preliminary round two highest ranked teams in each group advanced to the semifinals and the two lowest ranked teams advanced to the 5th–8th place semifinals.