The 2018 FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League was the inaugural edition of the
FIVB Women's Volleyball Nations League, a new annual international women's
volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
tournament contested by 16 national teams that replaced the former
World Grand Prix in the international calendar.
The competition was held between May and July 2018, and the final round took place in the
Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre,
Nanjing
Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400.
Situated in the Yang ...
, China.
Six-time World Grand Prix winners,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
won the inaugural edition, defeating
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
in five sets on the final. This was Turkey's first ever final on a senior world-level premier competition (
World Championship
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...
,
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...
,
Summer Olympic Games
The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The 1896 Summer Olympics, inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, ...
and the aforementioned Grand Prix). Reigning Olympic champions and host nation,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
defeated 12-time Grand Prix champions
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
in straight sets for the bronze medal.
Michelle Bartsch-Hackley from USA was elected the
MVP
MVP most commonly refers to:
* Most valuable player, an award, typically for the best performing player in a sport or competition
* Minimum viable product, a concept for feature estimating used in business and engineering
MVP may also refer to:
...
.
Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
was the last placed challenger team after the preliminary round and will be replaced by
Challenger Cup winners
Bulgaria
Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
in the
2019 edition.
Qualification
Sixteen teams qualified for the competition. Twelve of them qualified as core teams which cannot face relegation. Other four teams were selected as challenger teams which could be relegated from the tournament.
Format
Preliminary round
The 16 teams compete in a
round-robin format with every core team hosting a pool at least once. The teams are divided into 4 pools of 4 teams at each week and compete five weeks long, with a total of 120 matches. The top five teams after the league round join the hosts of the final round to compete in the final round.
[ The relegation takes in consideration only the 4 challenger teams and the last ranked challenger team will be excluded from the 2019 Nations League. The winners of the Challenger Cup will qualify for the next edition as a challenger team.
]
Final round
The six qualified teams play in 2 pools of 3 teams in round-robin. The top 2 teams of each pool qualify for the semifinals. The pool winners play against the runners-up in this round. The semifinals winners advance to compete for the Nations League title. The losers face in the third place match.
Pools composition
The overview of pools was released on February 16, 2018.[
]
Preliminary round
Final round
Venues
The list of host cities and venues was announced on February 16, 2018.[
]
Preliminary round
Final round
Competition schedule
Pool standing procedure
# Total number of victories (matches won, matched lost)
# In the event of a tie, the following first tiebreaker will apply: The teams will be ranked by the most point gained per match as follows:
#*Match won 3–0 or 3–1: 3 points for the winner, 0 points for the loser
#*Match won 3–2: 2 points for the winner, 1 point for the loser
#*Match forfeited: 3 points for the winner, 0 points (0–25, 0–25, 0–25) for the loser
# If teams are still tied after examining the number of victories and points gained, then the FIVB will examine the results in order to break the tie in the following order:
#*Set quotient: if two or more teams are tied on the number of points gained, they will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of the number of all set won by the number of all sets lost.
#*Points quotient: if the tie persists based on the set quotient, the teams will be ranked by the quotient resulting from the division of all points scored by the total of points lost during all sets.
#*If the tie persists based on the point quotient, the tie will be broken based on the team that won the match of the Round Robin Phase between the tied teams. When the tie in point quotient is between three or more teams, these teams ranked taking into consideration only the matches involving the teams in question.
Squads
The 16 national teams involved in the tournament were required to register a squad of 21 players, which every week's 14-player roster must be selected from. Each country must declare its 14-player roster two days before the start of each week's round-robin competition.
Preliminary round
Ranking
Week 1
Pool 1
*All times are Yekaterinburg Time ( UTC+05:00).
Pool 2
*All times are China Standard Time
The time in China follows a single standard UTC offset, time offset of UTC+08:00, where Beijing is located, even though the country spans five geographical time zones. It is the largest sovereign nation in the world that officially observes only ...
( UTC+08:00).
Pool 3
*All times are Central Summer Time ( UTC-05:00).
Pool 4
*All times are Brasília time
Time in Brazil is calculated using standard time, and the country (including its offshore islands) is divided into four standard time zones: Fernando de Noronha time (UTC−02:00), Brasília time (UTC−03:00), Amazon time (UTC−04:00), and Acr ...
( UTC−03:00).
Week 2
Pool 5
*All times are Japan Standard Time
, or , is the standard time zone in Japan, 9 hours ahead of UTC (UTC+09:00). Japan does not observe daylight saving time, though its introduction has been debated on several occasions. During World War II, the time zone was often referred to a ...
( UTC+09:00).
Pool 6
*All times are Korea Standard Time
South Korea has one time zone, Korea Standard Time (UTC+09:00, UTC+9), which is abbreviated KST. South Korea currently does not observe daylight saving time.
From May 8 to October 9 in 1988, daylight saving time was tested to better accommodat ...
( UTC+09:00).
Pool 7
*All times are Macau Standard Time ( UTC+08:00).
Pool 8
*All times are Further-eastern European Time
UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours ahead of the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Following the ISO 8601 standard, a time with this offset would be writt ...
( UTC+03:00).
Week 3
Pool 9
*All times are Central European Summer Time
Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+02:00), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central E ...
( UTC+02:00).
Pool 10
*All times are Central European Summer Time
Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+02:00), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central E ...
( UTC+02:00).
Pool 11
*All times are Indochina Time
UTC+07:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +07:00. In ISO 8601 the associated time would be written as . It is 7 hours ahead of UTC, meaning that when the time in UTC areas is midnight (00:00), the time in UTC+07:00 areas would ...
( UTC+07:00).
Pool 12
*All times are Hong Kong Time
Hong Kong Time (abbreviation: HKT; ) is the time in Hong Kong, observed at UTC+08:00 all year round. The Hong Kong Observatory is the official timekeeper of the Hong Kong Time. It is indicated as Asia/Hong_Kong in the IANA time zone database ...
( UTC+08:00).
Week 4
Pool 13
*All times are Central European Summer Time
Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+02:00), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central E ...
( UTC+02:00).
Pool 14
*All times are China Standard Time
The time in China follows a single standard UTC offset, time offset of UTC+08:00, where Beijing is located, even though the country spans five geographical time zones. It is the largest sovereign nation in the world that officially observes only ...
( UTC+08:00).
Pool 15
*All times are Indochina Time
UTC+07:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +07:00. In ISO 8601 the associated time would be written as . It is 7 hours ahead of UTC, meaning that when the time in UTC areas is midnight (00:00), the time in UTC+07:00 areas would ...
( UTC+07:00).
Pool 16
*All times are Central European Summer Time
Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+02:00), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central E ...
( UTC+02:00).
Week 5
Pool 17
*All times are Central European Summer Time
Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+02:00), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central E ...
( UTC+02:00).
Pool 18
*All times are Central European Summer Time
Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+02:00), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central E ...
( UTC+02:00).
Pool 19
*All times are Central European Summer Time
Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC+02:00), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central E ...
( UTC+02:00).
Pool 20
*All times are Argentina Standard Time ( UTC-03:00).
Final round
*Venue: Nanjing Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium, Nanjing
Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400.
Situated in the Yang ...
, China
*All times are China Standard Time
The time in China follows a single standard UTC offset, time offset of UTC+08:00, where Beijing is located, even though the country spans five geographical time zones. It is the largest sovereign nation in the world that officially observes only ...
( UTC+08:00).
Pool play
Pool A
Pool B
Final four
Semifinals
3rd place match
Final
Final standing
''Source
VNL 2018 final standings
'
Awards
* Most valuable player
*:
* Best setter
*:
* Best Outside Hitters
*:
*:
* Best Middle Blockers
*:
*:
* Best Opposite
*:
* Best libero
*:
Statistics leaders
Preliminary round
'
Final round
'
See also
*2018 FIVB Volleyball Men's Nations League
The 2018 FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League was the inaugural edition of the FIVB Men's Volleyball Nations League, a new annual international men's volleyball tournament contested by 16 national teams that replaced the former World League in t ...
* 2018 FIVB Volleyball Women's Challenger Cup
References
External links
Fédération Internationale de Volleyball
– official website
FIVB Volleyball Nations League
– official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Volleyball, Nations League, Women, 2018
2018
Events January
* January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency.
* January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...
FIVB
Nations League, Women, 2018
2018 in Chinese sport
May 2018 sports events in China
June 2018 sports events in China
July 2018 sports events in China
Sport in Nanjing
Sports competitions in Stuttgart
International volleyball competitions hosted by Hong Kong
2018
Events January
* January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency.
* January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...