Volleyball demands speed, fitness and agility.
VOLLEYBALL
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Technical details
Indoor volleyball is played on courts which are 18m long
and 9m wide. Beach volleyball's dimensions are 16x8m.
The ball is spherical, made of leather and weighs between 260 and 280gm. In
both games the net is 9.5m long and 1m wide but placed at different heights for
men and women. For men the nets must be 2.43m above the ground and for women
2.24m.
Players hit or tap the ball to keep it off the ground. They are not allowed to
catch, hold or run with the ball. Only three touches are allowed by a team
before the opposing team must touch it.
Under recently-introduced rules, points are no longer only scored by the serving team. Each rally counts towards the points scoring, with the winner of each rally also winning the honour of serving next.
In sets one to four, the set is won when the team reaches 25 points for indoor volleyball, but in each case there must be a minimum lead of two points.
The fifth set is played to 15 points indoors, with the winner again needing to be two points clear.
On the beach, it's best-of-three sets and the first two sets are to 21 and the decider to 15.
Indoor volleyball teams consist of 12 players, with six on the court at any
time. For beach volleyball there are just two players in the team, with no
substitutes.
Five facts
1) Volleyball was invented by American W G Morgan in 1895 as a game for middle-aged men who found basketball too rigorous. It has now become a sport
which demands speed, fitness and agility.
2) Indoor volleyball first appeared on the Olympic schedule in 1964.
3) Beach volleyball has been popular since the 1950s and was a demonstration
sport in the 1992 Olympic Games.
4) Beach volleyball appeared on the Olympic programme at Atlanta in 1996.
5) In that inaugural beach volleyball event in Atlanta, Great Britain
qualified a team for the first time in the history of the sport. Audrey Cooper
and Amanda Glover finished ninth.
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