Tokyo v Paris : A Comparison – Part 1

So the Olympics are finished. And what a tournament it was. Every day of competition it seemed like there was a classic match right up until semi final day. That the last two competition days were an anticlimax in comparison took nothing away from the overall tournament. I don’t know the exact reason, but somehow this tournament moved me in a completely different way than previous tournaments. I am sure the atmosphere in the stadium was part of it, there was also a different connection with the participants than I remember from before. Whatever it was, I enjoyed it immensely.

It was interesting to follow the tournament and note some differences in the game from just three years ago. The feeling was that the rallies were long and that all teams at different points went through periods in which it seemed almost impossible to score. That was the impression, at least. Luckily I have some actual data, and can investigate some of those feelings.

STATISTICAL AREA	TOKYO	PARIS
SIDEOUT %	70%	67.9%
ATTACK %	48.9%	46.5%
ATTACK EFFICIENCY	34.7%	32.4%
‘ERROR’ %	14.2%	14.1%
ATTACKS IN PLAY	36.9%	39.4%
ACE %	4.4%	6.2%
SERVE ERROR %	18.6%	18.5%
RALLIES WITH ATTACK	77%	75.3%

Right off the bat we can say some things about how men’s volleyball has (probably*) evolved over the last three years.

• Serving is better. More aces without increasing the error rate means serving has improved.
• Better serving has two distinct outcomes:
  • Shorter rallies. That is, fewer rallies that continue after the serve.
  • Longer rallies. That is, better serving leads to worse attacking opportunities and less chance to score.
• Block and defence is more effective. Whether that is directly because of improved serve (i.e block and defence has more advantageous situations) or because block and defence has actually improved is a post for another day.
• The rule changes ‘worked’. FIVB instructed officials to be stricter on rotational faults, and on ball handling in attack. It is possible those two elements also contributed to longer rallies. I’m not sure how to test that hypothesis.

That seems like a good start. I will dig a bit deeper into it in the next days / weeks.

If you have any specific questions, let me know and I will do my best to answer them.