No London for Lloy

Our hopes of seeing him in London were CRUSHED upon hearing this news…

2008 Olympic gold medalist, Lloy Ball, will NOT play at the 2012 London Olympics. Even if he changes his mind next year, it still won’t happen. We repeat, King Lloy Ball will not play at next year’s Olympics and will not represent Team USA as they defend their gold medal crown.

There’s a rule in the US which requires all American athletes on all US Olympic teams to complete and submit documents relating to doping control. The process is required ONE YEAR before the Olympic Games which was last July 23rd, 2011. Failure to comply means that the athlete has completely lost the chance of playing and achieving his/her Olympic dream.

Lloy did NOT submit nor complete any of the documents therefore he is NOT qualified to compete.

We really WANTED King LB to play in London but at the same time we totally respect his decision. So now Coach Knipe has pretty much less than a year to develop his current setters to lead Team USA who failed to finish in the Top 3 at the World Cup and will now compete at the NORCECA Qualifier next year.

Before we forget, we’d like to share this quote by Mark Lebedew (a professional volleyball coach at international and club level for 12 years) on Team USA’s future after the World Cup.

“USA has no chance of a medal. Actually they have one chance. Lloy Ball. After three years of the post LB era, they still haven’t worked out who is his successor. In this tournament they swapped setters around again, and they never seemed to find much rhythm, despite the emergence of passer hitter Matt Anderson as a potential world class player and a good tournament from Clay Stanley. It’s really, really hard to see how they can improve enough to be a real threat in London. Their saving grace may well be that none of the other ‘favourites’ are without their weaknesses, so getting hot at the right time could make a bigger than normal difference. That’s not really what you want to have as a plan though.”

Mark clearly pointed out Team USA’s current problem, ie finding the RIGHT SETTER. Coach Knipe has pretty much rotated all the setters he has on his squad. In our opinion, his strategy is unsuccessful & fails to build a consistent rhythm among his players because he has failed to develop the team’s MAIN SETTER.

Since taking over in 2008, Team USA became Medal-less from being medalists. Bring Coach McCutcheon Suxho back!

THOUGHTS? THOUGHTS? THOUGHTS?

(images: FIVB)