10 Interesting Facts about Volleyball

One of these following facts about volleyball might be interesting for you to read. 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 teams’ court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summer Olympic Games since 1964. The complete rules are extensive. But simply, play proceeds as follows: a player on one of the teams begins a ‘rally’ by serving the ball, from behind the back boundary line of the court, over the net, and into the receiving team’s court. To get to know more about it, here are some other facts about volleyball you might like. 

Facts about volleyball 1: Volleyball in Olympics

The history of Olympic volleyball traces back to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, where, where volleyball was played as part of an American sports demonstration event. After the foundation of FIVB and some continental confederations, it began to be considered for official inclusion. In 1957, a special tournament was held at the 53rd IOC session in Sofia, Bulgaria to support such request.

Facts about volleyball 2: The Court Dimension

A volleyball court is 18 m (59 ft) long and 9 m (29.5 ft) wide, divided into 9 m × 9 m halves by a one-meter (40-inch) wide net. The top of the net is 2.43 m (8 ft 0 in) above the center of the court for men’s competition, and 2.24 m (7 ft 4 in) for women’s competition, varied for veterans and junior competitions.

Facts about volleyball 3: The Ball

FIVB regulations state that the ball must be spherical, made of leather or synthetic leather, have a circumference of 65–67 cm, a weight of 260–280 g and an inside pressure of 0.30–0.325 kg/cm². Other governing bodies have similar regulations.

Facts about volleyball 4: Game Play

Each team consists of six players. To get play started, a team is chosen to serve by coin toss. A player from the serving team throws the ball into the air and attempts to hit the ball so it passes over the net on a course such that it will land in the opposing team’s court (the serve). The opposing team must use a combination of no more than three contacts with the volleyball to return the ball to the opponent’s side of the net.

Facts about volleyball 5: Scoring

When the ball contacts the floor within the court boundaries or an error is made, the team that did not make the error is awarded a point, whether they served the ball or not. If the ball hits the line, the ball is counted as in. The team that won the point serves for the next point. If the team that won the point served in the previous point, the same player serves again.

Facts about volleyball 6: Libero

In 1998 the libero player was introduced internationally. The libero is a player specialized in defensive skills: the libero must wear a contrasting jersey color from his or her teammates and cannot block or attack the ball when it is entirely above net height. When the ball is not in play, the libero can replace any back-row player, without prior notice to the officials.

Facts about volleyball 7: Skills

Competitive teams master six basic skills, including serve, pass, set, attack, block and dig. Each of these skills comprises a number of specific techniques that have been introduced over the years and are now considered standard practice in high-level volleyball.

Facts about volleyball 8: Team Play

Volleyball is essentially a game of transition from one of the above skills to the next, with choreographed team movement between plays on the ball. These team movements are determined by the teams chosen serve receive system, offensive system, coverage system, and defensive system.

Facts about volleyball 9: Related Games

There are many variations on the basic rules of volleyball. By far the most popular of these is beach volleyball, which is played on sand with two people per team, and rivals the main sport in popularity, including footvolley, hooverball, prisoner ball, throwball, buka ball, beachball volleyball, sepak takraw and wallyball.

Facts about volleyball 10: Basic Coaching

Coaching for volleyball can be classified under two main categories: match coaching and developmental coaching. The objective of match coaching is to win a match by managing a team’s strategy.

Hope you would find those volleyball facts interesting and useful for your additional reading.