Jenny Lang Ping's Chinese women's volleyball team celebrates for winning the Rio Olypic Games gold medal after the victorious final over Serbia in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Aug. 20, 2016. (Li Ga/Xinhua)
BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese women's volleyball team, led by Lang Ping, will continue their medal-winning run for the next ten years, according to International Federation de Volleyball (FIVB) president Ary S. Graca.
After Lang Ping took the helm of China again in 2013, the Chinese women have emerged as the most successful women's team in the world, bagging consecutive titles at the World Cup in 2015, the Olympic Games in 2016 and the Grand Champions Cup in 2017, as well as a silver and a bronze in the World Championships in 2014 and 2018.
"The women's volleyball team is very young, they will be on the podium for the next ten years," Graca told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
Graca had made a prediction that China would go to the final of the women's volleyball at the Rio Games during his visit to China in May of 2016, with the Chinese women eventually making it to the final and claiming the gold medal.
"I was not only trying to please the public here, I knew what I was saying," Graca recalled. "I saw the training, I talked to the girls and they were very young and very strong, I had no doubt about this."
The FIVB president also encouraged the Chinese men's team, which is bidding to qualify for the Tokyo Games under Raul Lozano of Argentina. Despite their women's counterparts' triumph, the Chinese men have missed the last two Olympic Games in a row following their participation as hosts at the Beijing Games in 2008.
"As for the men's Chinese team, you have big potential. The Chinese players are some of the tallest in the world, more or less like the Russians, so you have potential," Graca said. "The problem is to put in the heads of the players the idea of professionalism, the commitment with the sport, to train, train, train, that's the only word I know for those winners: it's work, work, work."
Following his meeting with Gou Zhongwen, director of China's General Administration of Sport, on Tuesday, Graca revealed that the FIVB would continue to work closely with the Chinese Volleyball Association to make the sport more popular in China.
"You have won the gold medal in the women's competitions and we must come here to develop volleyball to the whole country and mainly to children in schools," he said. "That's my mission here and I made a program with the minister exactly to try to develop not only the excellent level of volleyball but to spread volleyball all over the country."
With the FIVB striving to make volleyball the "No. 1 family sport in the world," Graca was very confident in the development of the sport in China.
"In China, you still have the spirit of family and volleyball is the sport that you can bring your children, your mother and the fiance of your daughter together," he said. "There is no struggle, no touch, no combat. It is the sport of peace, and that's what we need in the family."
"I am quite sure that for China volleyball will fit very well in schools. It's the only sport that women and men can play together, without hurting each other, because there is no contact, no violence, and the children can play."
The FIVB also has the ambition of making volleyball "The Sport of Asia."
"Asia is very important for volleyball, that's why I'm here to proceed with these goals that we have, because China is very important for us, and Thailand is a huge country of volleyball. Indonesia is No. 1 in visits to our website. In Philippines, volleyball is No. 1 sport. We are going to conquer that continent," Graca said.
