From correspondents in Europe, 06:02 PM IST

Beijing: With the drawing of lots for the Beijing Olympics volleyball tournament completed here Wednesday, the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) is considering another draw to help decide the line up of the quarterfinals.

'We may have another draw at the end of the preliminaries to decide half of the quarterfinal clashes,' said Wei Jizhong, first executive vice-president of the FIVB, at a press conference after Wednesday's draw.

The official draw was conducted Wednesday afternoon at the Capital Indoor Stadium, the main volleyball venue during the Beijing Games, as twelve qualified teams in each tournament were divided equally into Pools A and B for the preliminaries with a serpentine system based on world ranking used to determine the composition of the pools.

'In the quarterfinals, top finishers from preliminary Pool A will play fourth finishers from Pool B while fourth finishers from Pool A are to clash with top finishers from Pool B,' Wei elaborated to the journalists.

'But another draw may be needed to decide quarterfinals among the second and third finishers from the preliminaries, and this would be different from previous Olympic volleyball tournaments.'

(Staff Writer, © IANS)