Evolution in men's volleyball skills and tactics as evidenced in the Athens 2004 Olympic Games

The study compares the effectiveness of the five principal skills in men's Volleyball (serve, reception, attack, block and dig) between the Sydney 2000 and the Athens 2004 Olympic Games and examines to what extent the observed changes are connected with the implementation of the new rules in Volleyball. The findings revealed a universal tendency of the elite men's volleyball teams to enhance their defence by reducing their block and dig faults. On the contrary there was an increase of the reception faults as a result of the improvement of the service effectiveness. The above changes reflect the teams' shift of tactics to win more points from their own serve. This tactical development became more imperative after the introduction of the rally-point system, which reduced the number of points played per set, and hence the teams' opportunities of gaining the minimum two-point advantage in order to win the set. Nonetheless, the Athens gold-medalist team of Brazil showed, in addition to the above, remarkable reception effectiveness which led to an outstanding attack capability, thus reestablishing the attack as the most important skill in volleyball