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Australian Sports Commission
The AIS Men ’s Volleyball program forms the core of all national indoor team programs (youth, junior and senior), preparing and developing athletes for international competition. The Australian Volleyball Federation was founded in 1963, and the sport of volleyball has rapidly increased in popularity since then, particularly in schools and recreational centers. Volleyball Team Australia Men (VTAM) has been supported by the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) since 1990.
The AIS Women's Volleyball program was later established in 1993 and was based in Perth. Both the men's and women's programs were relocated to the main campus of the AIS in Canberra in 1997. The AIS Women’s Program was discontinued in January, 2005.
The Australian Institute of Sport based program operates year round, with increasing numbers of players competing in European/American professional leagues.
Currently all senior members of the AIS/Volleyball Team Australia Men (VTAM) program have professional contracts in European/American Volleyball leagues and return to Australia for the international competition season from May through to September each year.
The development (junior and youth aged) athletes within the AIS Men's Volleyball program, are on fulltime residential AIS scholarships. These athletes train for volleyball six days a week, study or work while also receiving the best treatment in strength and conditioning training, medicine, physiotherapy, massage, nutrition, recovery, psychology, performance analysis, skill acquisition and biomechanics. It is an intense schedule aimed at maximising the benefits the AIS can provide the athletes within the 2-3 year period prior to heading overseas on professional contracts.
AIS/AUS Team Progress
The AIS/Australian Senior team entered the new century with an appearance in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where they placed 8th, beating Spain in the process and taking a set from World Champions, Italy.
Having participated in the Sydney Olympics as the host nation, Australia set out to qualify for Athens, in its own right (for the first time). At the World Olympic Qualification Tournament in Tokyo, Australia achieved this historic goal becoming the Asian Volleyball Confederation’s representative in Athens as the highest ranked Asian team, when it defeated traditional Asian powers Japan, Korea and China for the first time in a single International tournament.
At the Athens Olympics, in 2004, Australia eventually finished 11th while taking a set off the USA and World and Olympic Champions Brazil.
A new look Australian team competed in its 4th World Championships in 2006, to follow up its appearance in the 1982, 1998, 2002 editions of the tournament.
In 2007, Australia returned to Fukuoka (a host city of the 2006 World Championships) to win the Asia Pacific Cup for the first time.
Following on from their success at the Asia Pacific Cup, Australia traveled to India for the 2nd Commonwealth Championships for Men and won their second successive tournament in the space of two months as preparation for the 14th Asian Senior Men’s Volleyball Championship in Indonesia.
At the 14th Asian Senior Men’s Volleyball Championships, Australia created Asian volleyball history by winning the championship after playing ten games in ten days with only one loss. This was the first time in which a country other than China, Japan or Korea had won the Continental Championship and as such qualified Australia to its first FIVB Volleyball World Cup.
Australia then competed in the prestigious FIVB men's World Cup 2007 beating Korea, Japan, Tunisia and Puerto Rico during the tournament in a fantastic display by the Australians to finish 8th overall against the top Volleyball nations in the world.
Following these tournaments Australia has now progressed up the World Rankings from 24th to a fantastic 11th in the world in less than a year.
Ken Wallace