Cuba didn’t deserve that.
Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz turned the story of seaside volleyball in these Olympic Video games after they not solely upset their solution to a Pool D win however seemed very a lot the a part of the favorites to take action, sweeping Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, Brazil’s George Wanderley and Andre Loyola, and tacking on the anticipated victory over Morocco. After these three matches, Alayo led the match in blocks per set. Diaz, the tallest defender within the subject, was great, a Giannis Antetokounmpo on sand.
Their reward?
Drawing Sweden, one of the best crew on the planet, the pair who has made 10 straight finals, within the first spherical of the playoffs.
How does this occur?
Pool play.
The present format of the Olympic Video games is a round-robin fashion pool play through which the 4 groups in every pool all play each other. The highest three groups break pool, with the 2 finest third-place groups, as decided by set and level differential, starting within the spherical of 16.
As a result of Sweden’s win, over Australians Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher, got here in a sweep and certainly one of their losses — to Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan — got here in a three-setter, they started playoffs within the spherical of 16.
The identical spherical the place the entire 3-0 groups started.
To name the system unfair, as many have, isn’t my favourite verbiage. It’s a good system in that it’s equally unfair to everybody. Cuba may have gone 1-2 in pool play — because the on-paper seeding would have anticipated — and drawn a 3-0 Swedish crew and few would have blinked a watch about it. In that sense, it’s truthful.
However it’s unjust.
A crew with two losses and one win shouldn’t be in the identical place as a crew with three wins.
Cuba was unjustly punished for profitable pool and taking part in arguably one of the best seaside volleyball of any crew by way of the primary three matches. Sweden was unjustly rewarded for enjoying their worst seaside volleyball in additional than a calendar yr.
This presents one of many many points with pool play: there are oftentimes little to no penalties for shedding, and little to no profit to profitable.
There may be sometimes an incentive to lose.
Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers had no intention on shedding their opening spherical of pool play to Latvian children Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Martins Plavins in Beijing of 2008. Certainly, the heavy favorites to medal in Beijing very a lot desired to win.
They didn’t, and the 21-19, 21-18 stunner continues to be thought-about the best upset in Olympic seaside volleyball historical past.
It was additionally, unbeknownst to them on the time, one of the best factor that might have occurred.
That loss, and subsequent pair of wins of their subsequent two matches, earned them one of many best routes to a gold medal match conceivable. Within the three ensuing rounds, Dalhausser and Rogers performed the 20 seed, the 8 and the 15 to make it to the gold medal match towards Brazil. Their semifinal was not towards Emanuel and Ricardo, or Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal, or Fabio and Marcio, however … Georgia.
Georgia?
Georgia.
“The celebs aligned,” Dalhausser mentioned years in the past.
They usually aligned as a result of they misplaced.
Eight years later, in Rio, the other occurred. Dalhausser and Nick Lucena took care of enterprise in pool play, profitable all three matches, as was anticipated of the No. 3 seed and arguably finest crew on the planet. The issue then was that Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt, the No. 1 seed additionally with a agency case for one of the best crew on the planet, didn’t. Upset by Austrians Alex Horst and Clemens Doppler — “unhealthy, unhealthy,” Alison nonetheless says, laughing and shaking his head about that match — Alison and Bruno have been now on the opposite finish of the bracket, with Dalhausser and Lucena.
When the 2 powers met, then, the match many thought-about the de facto gold medal match wasn’t for a medal in any respect, however for fifth. Alison and Bruno received that match and went on to win the gold medal.
Dalhausser and Lucena, winners of 4 straight by that time in Rio, didn’t deserve that matchup any greater than Cuba did on Sunday in Paris.
The fact of the Olympics, and the pool play format through which it’s performed, is that Dalhausser and Lucena would have been higher off shedding a match in Rio.
Similar as Cuba in Paris.
However as a result of that is the Olympic Video games, no crew will outright forfeit in an try to enhance their draw (though, up to now, there was an incentive to forfeit, one thing that has since been rectified, with groups profitable one level for a loss and 0 for a forfeit). Such isn’t the case in Problem occasions on the Seaside Professional Tour.
Those that have adopted the Seaside Professional Tour will not be unfamiliar with the rash of forfeits that happen within the second spherical of pool play between two groups who received their first match. Win or lose, each groups will start playoffs within the spherical of 16. Gamers ceaselessly decide to relaxation as a substitute, selecting the advantage of taking a match off their legs as a substitute of the “improved seeding” that will or might not include profitable pool.
In lots of circumstances, groups will do the mathematics and try to forfeit sooner than the opposite crew, as a result of they know ending second in pool is definitely extra helpful than profitable.
This precise state of affairs performed out within the Haikou Problem final fall. Two groups — I received’t point out who — understood that the one method they’d play Spain’s Adrian Gavira and Pablo Herrera — arguably one of the best crew within the match — within the first spherical was in the event that they received pool. So that they performed rock, paper, scissors, each groups desirous to lose, as a result of shedding was in impact an enchancment upon their seed within the playoff rounds.
Welcome to sports activities competed in a pool play format, girls and gents.
There’s a resolution. A straightforward one, too. A format through which such messes will not be discovered: Double-elimination tournaments.
Each match in a double-elimination format has each rewards and penalties. Win, and also you advance additional into the match. Lose, and also you sentence your self to a protracted grind by way of the loser’s bracket.
It’s simply, rewarding winners, punishing losers.
There may be the possibility, after all, in a double-elimination format that two top-seeded groups are upset and meet sooner than in any other case can be anticipated in an elimination spherical.
To me, that’s a simply system.
Winners transfer on. Losers don’t.
That’s sports activities.
Pool play is hardly sport.
It renders many — the bulk, in truth — of matches hardly greater than exhibitions. Few penalties. Few rewards. Simply theater for theater’s sake.
The 1996 Atlanta Olympic Video games, the primary through which seaside volleyball was an Olympic sport, was performed in a double-elimination format.
I don’t know why we ever went away from it, however I do know this: It’s time we return.