The future is now more important.

The Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games concluded on Monday with the closing ceremony.

South Korea finished third overall with 42 gold, 59 silver, and 89 bronze medals.

First place went to China (201 gold, 111 silver, 71 bronze) and second to Japan (52 gold, 67 silver, 69 bronze).

While some sports received fan support, such as baseball, which won its fourth straight title with a hard-fought victory over Chinese Taipei, and men’s soccer, which became the first men’s soccer team to win three consecutive Asian Games titles after beating arch-rivals Japan, others did not.

If we had to pick one sport that disappointed fans at the Games, it would be volleyball.

In the history of Korean volleyball, the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games will go down as one of the worst performances.

Let’s start with men’s volleyball. Before the official opening ceremony even took place, it was clear that the men’s volleyball team would fail to medal.

The men’s volleyball team faltered in the preliminary round with a loss to India and then fell short of advancing to the higher rounds with a 0-3 loss to Pakistan in the round of 12.

It’s been 61 years since Korea’s men’s volleyball team failed to win a medal at the 1962 Jakarta Games.

Since then, Korea has won 14 consecutive medals, making them the Asian Tigers of the Asian stage, but this tournament confirmed their status as one of Asia’s third-tier programs.

With a third-place finish at the 2023 Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Challenger Cup and a quarterfinal exit at the Asian Championships prior to the Asian Games, it was clear that the team had to turn things around. 바카라사이트

Korea went on to defeat Bahrain, Thailand, and Indonesia in the ranking match to finish in seventh place, which is the lowest ever finish for Korean men’s volleyball at an Asian Games.

Head coach Lim Do-heon said, “It was difficult to play in this tournament because we didn’t have a good left-right balance.

Our middle blockers are weak. But that’s just an excuse.

I don’t have anything to say.

This is how we play in international competitions.

We have a lot of work to do in the future, including basic defense,” she concluded.

The women’s volleyball schedule started after the disaster in men’s volleyball.

Their performance at the Asian Games was all the more important because they hadn’t had much success in recent international competitions.

“We’re always grateful to the fans who send us DMs and messages of support,” said Women’s Volleyball Head Coach Cesar Hernandez Gonzalez.

We’ve been receiving a lot of messages of support, and we’re determined to do well on the court.”

However, it was defeat that came back to haunt them.

They got off to a shaky start in their first match against Vietnam, taking the first and second sets before dropping the third, fourth, and fifth. Perhaps this loss was a wake-up call for Korea that they would not be able to reach the semifinals.

Going into the quarterfinals with one win and one loss is the difference in the world.

Everyone prepared for the first match against Vietnam as the most important match of the tournament, but all plans went awry from the first game.

Lee Da-hyun (Hyundai E&C) said, “If we lose to Vietnam, it will be difficult to reach the quarterfinals, so we tried to win.” Kang So-hwi (GS Caltex) said, “The players had mental problems.

We can’t play like this.

We need to get our act together,” and “I think we all did stupid things.

We felt sorry for ourselves.

I blamed myself a lot because we lost a game that we shouldn’t have lost.”

True to their word, South Korea drew Nepal in the second round of the preliminary round, but a 0-3 loss to China in the first match of the quarterfinals clinched the gold medal for the first time in 17 years, and the players had to hang their heads in shame.

They then beat North Korea, Kazakhstan and Chinese Taipei to match their fifth-place finish at the 2006 Doha Games, their only other gold medal, but they couldn’t smile.

After the men, the women.

This is the first time Korean men’s and women’s volleyball have ever won a joint gold medal at an Asian Games, making it all the more shocking.

Not to mention men’s volleyball, which hasn’t been on the Olympic stage since Sydney 2000, and women’s volleyball, which hasn’t been able to fill the void left by Kim Yeon-kyung (Heungkuk Life), who announced her retirement after Tokyo 2020.

It is no longer competitive even within Asia.

It is now ranked in the middle of the pack instead of at the top.

Men’s volleyball is dominated by Iran, China, Japan, and Qatar, while women’s volleyball is dominated by China, Japan, and Thailand.

The Korean Volleyball Association issued an apology on the evening of the 8th.

“We are very sorry for the poor performance of the national volleyball team in recent international competitions, including the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, and would like to apologize to the public and volleyball fans who have supported us,” the KVA said.

“The term of the men’s national team coach Lim Do-heon ended after the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, and the women’s national team coach Cesar mutually agreed to terminate his contract as it became difficult for the team to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In addition, the head of the men’s and women’s performance improvement committee took responsibility for the poor performance and expressed his resignation.”

“We will take a hard look at the direction of the national team and draw a new picture to qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles and 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games.

Starting with the Korean Volleyball Association, we will establish and implement a mid- to long-term development plan so that Korean volleyball can be reborn through growing pains.”

As the Korean Volleyball Association announced, the sport needs to change after this tournament. Otherwise, the sport will continue to fall out of favor with fans.

The players will be devastated, but they need to recover from the shock and get ready for the 2023-24 season. The men’s and women’s media days will be held on Nov. 11, followed by the opening game of the 2023-24 season on Nov. 14.

From this season on, they will join the Asian quarterfinals and compete against domestic players.

In particular, Ponpun Gedpard (IBK), Wipawee Sittong (Hyundai E&C), and Thanacha Sooksut (Roadworks), who helped Thailand win the bronze medal in women’s volleyball.

They will have to face players they have never faced before on the domestic stage.

If the highly paid domestic players don’t perform as well as the $100,000 (approximately $134.9 million) Asian quarterfinalists, they could face even more criticism from fans.