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| Event type

Volleyball, Men

Date13 – 26 October 1968
StatusOlympic
LocationGimnasio Olímpico Juan de la Barrera, Ciudad de México / Pista de Hielo Revolución, Ciudad de México
Participants119 from 10 countries
FormatRound-robin tournament.

The tournament was again a pure round-robin of ten teams. The qualifying consisted of the top seven teams from the 1966 World Championships. Romania withdrew and was replaced by Belgium. The United States and Brazil were added from the results of the 1967 Pan-American Games, joined by host nation Mexico, which had no volleyball tradition.

The two top teams were the gold and silver medalists from 1964, the USSR and Czechoslovakia. The Soviets had won the 1967 Europeans but Czechoslovakia was World Champion in 1966. Although the sport had been invented in the United States, the US was not considered in the same league as the top European powers. But in their first match they faced the favored Soviet team and defeated them in five sets, winning 15-6 in the fifth. The US would win only three other matches and the Soviets would not be defeated again. In the final match, the USSR played Czechoslovakia, both teams tied with records of 7-1, but the Soviets won in straights, 7, 4, and 8.

The Soviet Union was quite fortunate. It had not been playing well of late, and had recently lost three matches to the GDR (East Germany). In their Olympic match against East Germany, the Soviet team bus was stuck in traffic and they were 90 minutes late for the match. The East Germans could have taken a forfeit, but elected not to, and the USSR won the match in five sets. Had the USSR defaulted, Czechoslovakia would have won the gold medal, and East Germany would likely have won a medal. After returning home, the supposedly amateur East German players received the same rewards from the government usually accorded to silver medalists.

PosNumberTeamNOC
1Soviet UnionURSGold
1Eduard Sibiryakov
2Valery Kravchenko
3Vladimir Belyayev
4Yevgeny Lapinsky
5Oļegs Antropovs
6Vasilijus Matuševas
7Viktor Mikhalchuk
8Yury Poyarkov
9Boris Tereshchuk
10Vladimir Ivanov
11Ivans Bugajenkovs
12Georgy Mondzolevsky
CoachYury Kleshchov
2JapanJPNSilver
2Masayuki Minami
3Katsutoshi Nekoda
4Mamoru Shiragami
5Isao Koizumi
6Kenji Kimura
7Yasuaki Mitsumori
8Jungo Morita
9Tadayoshi Yokota
10Seiji Oko
11Tetsuo Sato
12Kenji Shimaoka
1Naohiro Ikeda-Nakano DNS
CoachYasutaka Matsudaira
3CzechoslovakiaTCHBronze
1Antonín Procházka
2Jiří Svoboda
3Lubomír Zajíček
4Josef Musil
5Josef Smolka
6Vladimír Petlák
7Petr Kop
8František Sokol
9Bohumil Golián
10Zdeněk Groessl
11Pavel Schenk
12Drahomír Koudelka
CoachVáclav Matiásek
4East GermanyGDR
1Horst Peter
2Eckhard Tielscher
3Siegfried Schneider
4Manfred Heine
5Rainer Tscharke
6Eckehard Pietzsch
7Arnold Schulz
8Rudi Schumann
9Jürgen Kessel
10Walter Toussaint
11Jürgen Freiwald
12Wolfgang Webner
CoachHerbert Jenter
5PolandPOL
1Stanisław Zduńczyk
2Aleksander Skiba
3Jerzy Szymczyk
4Edward Skorek
5Zbigniew Jasiukiewicz
6Tadeusz Siwek
7Zdzisław Ambroziak
8Stanisław Gościniak
9Romuald Paszkiewicz
10Hubert Wagner
11Wojciech Rutkowski
12Zbigniew Zarzycki
CoachTadeusz Szlagor
6BulgariaBUL
1Aleksandar Trenev
2Dimitar Zlatanov
3Gramen Prinov
4Petar Krachmarov
5Aleksandar Aleksandrov
6Zdravko Simeonov
7Milcho Milev
8Dimitar Karov
9Kiril Slavov
10Dinko Atanasov
11Angel Koritarov
12Stoyan Stoyanov
CoachDimitar Zahariev
7United StatesUSA
1Danny Patterson
2Pete Velasco, Jr.
3Jack Henn
4Butch May
5Larry Rundle
6Mike Bright
7Smitty Duke
8John Alstrom
9Jon Stanley
10Tom Haine
11Rudy Suwara
12Wink Davenport
CoachJim Coleman
8BelgiumBEL
1Jozef Mol
2Paul Mestdagh
3Fernand Walder
4Willem Bossaerts
5Bernard Vaillant
6Roger Maes
7Ronald Vandewal
8Hugo Huybrechts
9Roger Vandergoten
10Benno Saelens
11Berto Poosen
12Leo Dierckx
CoachPaul Clerck
9BrazilBRA
1Jorge de Souza
2Sérgio Pinheiro
3João Jens
4Gérson Schuch
5José da Costa
6Marco Antônio Volpi
7Mário Dunlop
8Antônio Carlos Moreno
9Décio de Azevedo
10Víctor Barcellos
11 Feitosa
12Paulo Petterle
CoachPaulo Matta
10MexicoMEX
1César Osuna
2Joel Calvo
3Jesús Loya
4Eduardo Sixtos
5Francisco González
6Juan Manuel Durán
7Carlos Aguirre
8Leopoldo Reyna
9César Barrón
10Antonio Barbet
11Luis Martell
12Eduardo Jiménez
Coach?

Round-Robin

Date13 – 26 October 1968
MatchDate/TimeCompetitorsNOCResultCompetitorsNOC
Match #115 Oct 10:00JapanJPN15-9, 15-11, 15-10PolandPOL
Match #215 Oct 17:00BulgariaBUL15-9, 15-4, 15-6MexicoMEX
Match #315 Oct 19:00CzechoslovakiaTCH15-12, 15-17, 14-16, 15-11, 15-9East GermanyGDR
Match #415 Oct 10:00BelgiumBEL15-7, 16-14, 9-15, 15-6BrazilBRA
Match #515 Oct 12:00United StatesUSA11-15, 15-10, 10-15, 15-10, 15-6Soviet UnionURS
Match #616 Oct 12:00CzechoslovakiaTCH15-0, 10-15, 15-7, 15-7United StatesUSA
Match #716 Oct 17:00PolandPOL15-10, 7-15, 15-4, 15-3MexicoMEX
Match #816 Oct 19:00JapanJPN15-6, 15-8, 15-13East GermanyGDR
Match #916 Oct 10:00BulgariaBUL15-10, 15-1, 15-5BelgiumBEL
Match #1016 Oct 17:00Soviet UnionURS11-15, 15-2, 15-9, 15-9BrazilBRA
Match #1117 Oct 10:00East GermanyGDR15-3, 15-5, 15-6MexicoMEX
Match #1217 Oct 12:00PolandPOL15-6, 15-5, 15-8BelgiumBEL
Match #1317 Oct 19:00CzechoslovakiaTCH2-15, 3-15, 15-12, 15-12, 15-11JapanJPN
Match #1417 Oct 10:00Soviet UnionURS15-10, 15-9, 15-10BulgariaBUL
Match #1517 Oct 17:00United StatesUSA15-12, 15-7, 15-10BrazilBRA
Match #1619 Oct 10:00JapanJPN15-1, 15-3, 15-11MexicoMEX
Match #1719 Oct 12:00Soviet UnionURS15-9, 15-10, 15-10PolandPOL
Match #1819 Oct 19:00East GermanyGDR15-1, 15-7, 15-7BelgiumBEL
Match #1919 Oct 10:00BulgariaBUL10-15, 17-15, 7-15, 15-7, 16-14United StatesUSA
Match #2019 Oct 17:00CzechoslovakiaTCH15-12, 15-10, 13-15, 13-15, 15-9BrazilBRA
Match #2120 Oct 12:00JapanJPN15-5, 15-5, 15-4BelgiumBEL
Match #2220 Oct 17:00CzechoslovakiaTCH15-10, 15-8, 15-8MexicoMEX
Match #2320 Oct 19:00Soviet UnionURS10-15, 15-9, 15-11, 12-15, 15-5East GermanyGDR
Match #2420 Oct 12:00BulgariaBUL15-8, 18-16, 15-3BrazilBRA
Match #2520 Oct 17:00PolandPOL15-5, 15-5, 15-8United StatesUSA
Match #2621 Oct 12:00BelgiumBEL15-11, 5-15, 13-15, 18-16, 15-2MexicoMEX
Match #2721 Oct 17:00Soviet UnionURS4-15, 15-13, 15-9, 15-13JapanJPN
Match #2821 Oct 12:00East GermanyGDR15-8, 15-12, 15-10United StatesUSA
Match #2921 Oct 10:00CzechoslovakiaTCH15-7, 10-15, 15-9, 4-15, 15-7BulgariaBUL
Match #3021 Oct 17:00PolandPOL15-12, 15-4, 15-7BrazilBRA
Match #3123 Oct 10:00PolandPOL15-3, 15-5, 15-10BulgariaBUL
Match #3223 Oct 12:00JapanJPN15-5, 15-8, 15-11United StatesUSA
Match #3323 Oct 19:00CzechoslovakiaTCH15-0, 15-4, 15-12BelgiumBEL
Match #3423 Oct 10:00Soviet UnionURS15-5, 15-8, 11-15, 15-5MexicoMEX
Match #3523 Oct 12:00East GermanyGDR15-13, 15-7, 14-16, 15-12BrazilBRA
Match #3624 Oct 10:00JapanJPN15-8, 15-11, 15-12BrazilBRA
Match #3724 Oct 12:00United StatesUSA14-16, 15-10, 15-9, 15-11MexicoMEX
Match #3824 Oct 19:00Soviet UnionURS15-2, 15-3, 15-5BelgiumBEL
Match #3924 Oct 10:00East GermanyGDR15-11, 8-15, 15-10, 10-15, 15-7BulgariaBUL
Match #4024 Oct 17:00PolandPOL15-5, 15-3, 12-15, 15-13CzechoslovakiaTCH
Match #4125 Oct 17:00BrazilBRA14-16, 15-6, 17-15, 15-8MexicoMEX
Match #4225 Oct 19:00East GermanyGDR15-11, 15-6, 15-6PolandPOL
Match #4325 Oct 10:00JapanJPN15-7, 15-6, 15-5BulgariaBUL
Match #4425 Oct 12:00United StatesUSA15-4, 16-14, 15-10BelgiumBEL
Match #4526 Oct 20:00Soviet UnionURS15-7, 15-4, 15-8CzechoslovakiaTCH