Men’s sitting volleyball was first included in the 1980 Paralympic Games with the women’s version following in 2004. And from August 29, we will be able to see them again, this time at Paris 2024. 16 teams, 8 men and 8 women, will compete for gold at the Arena. Among them, we will have Iran, China and Kazakhstan, representing the Asian continent.
Without a doubt, the king of this para sport is Iran. The interest started decades ago, helped by the fact that you don’t need a lot of equipment to play sitting volleyball. As an easily accessible para sport, the Iranians turned their attention to the qualification for the Paralympics at Seoul 1988. Since then, the eyes of the citizens of this country have been on the athletes, who wait every Paralympics for a gold, just as Argentina expects a goal from Messi.
The Asian continent does not let the team led by Hadi Rezaei go unnoticed, with 7 gold medals and 2 silver medals in its nine appearances in the Paralympics, it has been 100% of the time on the winners’ podium, making them the great favorites to perform at the Arena Paris with their debut on August 30.
Over the years, the Iran team has updated the techniques and involved advanced technology, without leaving behind the 200 days of practice per year, which are an essential key to declaring victory.
Like the hero of some book, on the Iran team is the player who holds the Guinness World Record as the tallest Paralympic player in the games and, currently, the second tallest man in the world. With a staggering height of 2.46 cm, the 37-year-old athlete Morteza Mehrzad has been one of the most important virtues that this team has.
Thanks to his participation in a television program in 2009, he was discovered by sitting volleyball coaches and was summoned to practice since 2011. The player made his debut at Rio 2016, helping his team to bring home gold, a feat they repeated at Tokyo 2020.
Mehrzad’s height has played a big role in securing Iran’s place on the podium, since the rest of the participating teams have been in the task of planning and organizing their moves better. Mehrzad’s maximum block is 2.30 cm, his opponents must multiply their reinforcements.
Kazakhstan is the other men’s team from Asia who will be competing in Paris. They are drawn in the opposite pool to Iran, with the top two teams in each pool going through to the semi-finals.
In the women’s event, China, are positioned as the ‘queens’ of the women’s category, having been in the gold medal match at every edition of the Paralympic Games winning 3 gold medals and 2 silver with all matches against the USA. They have the USA in their pool however and will meet them in their opening game on 30th August.
The competition starts on 29th August with men’s medal matches on the 6th August and the women’s on the 7th.
