A Busy Year for Asian Volleyball: AVC Releases Draft of 2021 Calendar

While many of the sports leagues are either on a hiatus or outright had canceled their seasons due to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic, we can expect volleyball to have a busy year come 2021.

After postponing most of its sanctioned events to 2021, the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) released a draft of the 2021 calendar highlighted by the Tokyo Olympics in July 2021, and the 31st Southeast (SEA) Games that will happen in Hanoi, Vietnam from November 21 to December 2, 2021. 

Opening 2021 for Asian volleyball will be the 13th Asian Men Under-19 (U19) Volleyball Championship that will run from January 9 to 16 in Iran. This will serve as a qualifying tournament for the 2021 Boys U19 World Championship. January events will also include qualifying tournaments for the 2021 Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) U19 Beach Volleyball World Championship, the 2021 Asian Women U18 World Championship, the 2021 Asian Women U20 World Championship, while the qualifying tournament for the 2021 Asian U21 World Championship set from February 20 to 27. The FIVB U19 Beach Volleyball World Championship will follow suit on March 24 to 28 in Thailand. 

Events for the second quarter of 2021 will include the 2021 Asian Men's and Women's Club Volleyball Championships as well as the men's and women's division of the 21st AVC Beach Tour Samila Open in Thailand and, the Fifth AVC Beach Tour Can Tho (women's). The men's and women's Volleyball Nations' League are also scheduled from May 7 to June 27 while the Sixth Asian Indoor Games in Thailand is set from May 21 to 30. June 2021 will be focused on the Asian Senior Beach Championships, the semi-finals, and finals of the AVC Beach Volleyball Continental Cup prior to the Olympics in July.

Remaining events listed on the drafted 2021 calendar are the AVC Beach Tour Penghu Open, both men's and women's division of the 21st Volleyball Championship before wrapping things up with the SEA Games and the Eastern Asian Women's Volleyball Championship in China.  

While it's only a draft calendar which means it's not yet final, AVC releasing this calendar gives us an idea of what we can expect from our volleyball national teams come 2021 especially with the men's team coming off a successful campaign in last year's SEA Games. 

Photo is from ESPN