Basic information
  • Event title﹕FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix™ Macao 2016
  • Venue﹕Macao Forum
  • Date﹕17 (Fri) to 19 (Sun) June 2016
  • Host﹕Sports Bureau of Macao SAR Government, Volleyball Association of Macao, China
  • Sanctioned by﹕Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB)
Teams

CHINABRAZILBELGIUMSERBIA

In brief

FIVB World Grand Prix is the annual spectacular world-class volleyball challenge organised by the Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB).

FIVB World Grand Prix has been hosted since 1993, when most of the matches in the preliminary round and finals were held in the East Asian countries, and where there is a huge market for volleyball events and most of the event sponsors come from.  Lately, some preliminary round matches were held in the US or European countries.  In 2003, for the first time in Europe, the Final match of the FIVB was staged in Italy.

As WGP is by nature a commercial sport event, its prize money is far more attractive than the three world volleyball classics held every four years (the World Volleyball Cup, World Volleyball Championship and that of the Olympics), though the later three are considered to be more reputable in terms of status.  The entries qualifying for the week of finals for WGP are selected upon the scores pocketed during its preliminary round matches.  Therefore, the title winner of WGP is generally not considered to be the world champion.  Yet, WGP has created a platform for volleyball stars, who have contributed much to the promotion of volleyball activities across the world.

The China team has taken part in all the editions of WGP.  In 2003, China team beat Russia and snatched the crown of WGP, it has yet to wait for another opportunity to regain the title.   Despite the privilege of playing host to the 2007 edition and won the ticket to the finals that year, China team could not put up a good performance and has lost the game to the Netherlands in the final match, resulting in China team just obtained its fourth 1st runner up title in that year’s WGP.  So far, China team has three 2nd runner ups, four 3rd runner ups and five 4th runner ups in WGP records.   To date, the biggest title winner is Brazil team sweeping eight Grand Prix titles, and a triple-crown for the three consecutive years from 2004 to 2006.  From 1993 to 2012, only the teams of China and Japan have been continuously taken part in all the editions of WGP.

Macao has been hosting this event annually since 1994, except in 2003 and 2004. In 2001 and 2011, Macao hosted the FIVB WGP Finals.