Internet Blamed For Poor Performance Of China's Volleyball Team

by Yuliya Talmazan | August 31, 2009 at 10:32 am

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The officials representing China's volleyball administration have made a statement against the use of Internet by their athletes. The administration claims that spending too much time on the Internet caused their women's team a medal at the FIVB World Grand Prix Final in Tokyo, Japan. China placed fifth out of the twelve teams participating, the worst team showing for China in many years. Not spending enough time with each other for team-bonding was an important factor that defined athlete's game, according to the administrators. In addition, they say staying up late and getting distracted by the Internet was what contributed a great deal to the team's poor performance.

Of course, social networks, such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, are banned in China. Perhaps, Chinese athletes could not help but sit through the night with laptops by their side, playing with the forbidden fruit to see what all the latest buzz in the world is about.

The Chinese women's volleyball team spend too much time surfing the internet, which directly contributed to their poor performance at the recent world grand prix in Japan, according to a senior official.
China, whose women have won two Olympic and multiple world volleyball titles, finished fifth with a young team in Tokyo last week, matching their worst performance at the annual tournament.

"They spend too much time online after a match or training, are too self-centred and haven't enough direct and close interaction," Li Quanqiang, deputy director of China's volleyball administration, told Monday's China Daily.