AVC Women’s Volleyball Continental Championship:
Iran drawn against China, Chinese Taipei, Iraq in pool phase
Iran has been drawn alongside host China, Chinese Taipei and Iraq in Pool A of the AVC Women’s Volleyball Continental Championship, which will get underway on August 21 in Tianjin, China.
The draw for the 23rd edition of the tournament was held on Tuesday, with the 12 participating teams divided into three preliminary pools.
This year’s tournament will mark Iran’s ninth appearance. The team finished 10th at the previous edition in Thailand in 2023, with its best-ever result coming in 2019, when it placed seventh.
With the champion securing direct qualification for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, China – runner-up in 2023 – will be eager to claim a record-extending 14th continental title and its first since 2015 on home soil.
Chinese Taipei, meanwhile, will look to improve on its ninth-place finish in 2023, while Iraq is set to make its tournament debut.
Elsewhere, defending champion Thailand has been drawn in Pool B alongside Kazakhstan, Indonesia and Australia, while five-time champion Japan joins Vietnam – winner of the AVC Women’s Nations Cup in June – South Korea and Hong Kong in Pool C.
The top two teams from each pool will advance to the quarterfinals, while the remaining two knockout berths will go to the two best third-placed teams.
Unlike previous editions, the quarterfinal matchups will be determined using the AVC’s Combined Team Ranking System rather than teams’ finishing positions in their respective pools. As a result, a runner-up from one pool could be seeded higher than the winner of another based on its overall performance during the preliminary round.
Iran’s 21-player squad is currently holding a training camp in Tehran, with South Korean head coach Lee Do-hee overseeing preparations remotely, ahead of what will be the national team’s third major international tournament of the season.
Iran retained its CAVA Championship title in June, thanks to a final victory over Kazakhstan, before enduring a disappointing campaign at the AVC Women’s Nations Cup, where it finished seventh in the 12-team tournament in Candon, Philippines.