The new European women’s champion and Volleyball Nations League winner Turkey became the first team to earn a visa to the Paris 2024 Olympics. The Turkish team turned over and outplayed hosts Japan by 3-1 (22:25, 25:22, 26:24, 25:12) in their penultimate match of the Group B tournament of the Olympic qualifiers, played yesterday in front of over 10,000 spectators at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo.
Thus, Turkey remained alone at the top of the standings with 6 wins from 6 matches and 18 points, and regardless of the result in their last match, they will certainly finish in one of the top two places and qualify for Paris 2024 Olympics.
The Turkish women’s volleyball team will finish the tournament with a match versus Belgium.
Japan is second in the standings with 15 points after 5 wins and 1 loss, the same as current Olympic and world runner-up Brazil in 3rd place, but with 14 points. The two teams face each other in a direct clash for second place and winning an Olympic quota.
Most valuable for Turkey was naturalized Cuban star Melissa Vargas with 22 points (1 block, 2 aces), and Hande Baladin added another 19 points (1 block, 1 ace) for the win.
For the Japanese, Sarina Koga scored 15 points (1 block), and Arisa Inoue scored 11 points.
