USA are the men's Olympic champions

Lausanne, Switzerland, March 19, 2012 – In order to simplify the distribution of teams into the FIVB Men’s World Olympic Qualification Tournaments due to take place in Japan, Germany and Italy in June, the FIVB Board of Administration approved a Sports Events Council proposal on Monday to assign places to the teams according to world ranking, using the serpentine system for rows three and four starting from Japan.

Key points include:
1) Three European teams have to be distributed one per tournament while two NORCECA teams are not to be seeded together in any of the three tournaments.
2) In case the team seeded in Japan as the lowest non-European and non-Asian is from NORCECA, the second NORCECA team cannot be seeded in the same pool.
3) The lowest ranked non-European and non-Asian teams will be automatically placed in the Japan event, following which the two Asian teams will be seeded according to the world ranking, India (WR 30) to Germany and Pakistan (WR 43) to Italy.

According to the world ranking the potential (the Continental Qualification tournaments will not be completed until May 15) list of teams is the following:
CEV: Three out of SRB (WR 7), BUL (WR 9), FRA (WR 21) CZE (WR 23)
NORCECA: Two out of CUB (WR 5), USA (WR 6), PUR (WR 17)
CSV: One out of ARG (WR 8), VEN (WR 16)
CAVB: One is EGY (WR 11) already qualified as the highest ranked Africa team after the completion of the African Continental Olympic Qualification tournament.
AVC: IND (WR 30) and PAK (WR 43) the best ranked after the four teams participating in the Asian Qualification Tournament.

* The Asia World Olympic Qualification Tournament is combined with the Asia Continental Olympic Qualification Tournament offering an Olympic vacancy to the winner of the tournament and the best Asian team. If an Asian team wins the tournament, the next best Asia team will qualify for the Olympics.

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