Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, May 10 – The women teams from China and Japan and the men’s teams from Chinese Taipei and Korea entered the finals at the 6th AVC Eastern Zonal Volleyball Championship and will fight for the gold medals on May 11, the last day of the Championships.

The AVC Eastern Zonal Championship is being held from 5 to 11 of May, 2008, in the Capital of Mongolia, with 7 women’s teams and 8 men’s teams from the Zone participating.

Host Mongolia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Macao, Chinese Taipei and Buryat field both women and men teams to the Championship while Korea only sent a men’s team to the event.

According to Mongolia Volleyball Association, Buryat is a neighboring federation of Mongolia. The general technical meeting of the Championships deicded to permitt them to play as an open entry only, and the official ranking of the Eastern zonal championship shall not be given to the team of Buryat.

In the women’s section, Chinese and Mongolian women’s team finished top two in Group A which also included Macao, while Japan and Buryat placed the first and second in Group B, in Which Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong placed third and fourth.

It was good to see the host women team performed better and better and impressed home “full house” fans being happy.

On May 9, China and Japan had easy matches against with Buryat and Mongolia, and defeated their opponents in straight sets in the semi-finals respectively.

For men’s competitions, as expected the teams from China, Korea, Japan and Chinese Taipei are in the top ranks and entered the semi-finals. From the competitions, the Eastern zonal teams are getting closer and closer. Chinese Taipei demonstrated very strong and impressive performance in the game against Japan, resulting in a rewarding 3-2 win over Japan.

In the semi-finals, the team from Chinese Taipei, the junior national selection of Chinese Taipei, outperformed over China’s Shandong University, resulting in an easy 3-0 win.

The highlight of the semi-final was the match between Korea and Japan. The University selection of Japan started with a strong emotional move and showed great defense followed by effective counterattacks, an easy winning of the first set. However, Korean Hanyang University came back with tight-tall block and strong power attacks from the 2nd set. It was a very exciting match to watch and was a great high quality volleyball show for “full house” Mongolian fans. The Japanese team, though performing fast multiple attacks and speedy defense, could not deal with Korean strong blockings and powerful attacks, losing to Korea after a five set battle 2-3.

The 6th Eastern Zonal Championships is well prepared by Mongolia and is running smoothly so far.