From high hopes of gold to stunned silence and gut-wrenching disappointment－it took just three matches for China's women's volleyball team to come crashing right back down to earth.

Despite beating an already qualified Italy 3-0 on Saturday night, three straight losses against Turkey, the United States and the Russian Olympic Committee consigned China to a shocking group-stage exit, with one more meaningless match to come against Argentina on Monday.

A traditional powerhouse in the sport, the team's failure to reach the knockout stage was China's worst performance in the Olympic women's volleyball tournament since its debut at the 1984 Games.

With the Rio 2016 champion's overreliance on its superstar talent exposed, the shock early exit in Tokyo sounded a warning that greater attention needs to be paid to both the domestic game's grassroots development and standards in the professional league.

"I take all responsibility for the results. We are sorry to all the fans who are supporting us," said an emotional head coach Lang Ping, who led the team to gold in Rio five years ago. "I feel so tired that I need to take a rest now."

The 61-year-old Lang, who took over a struggling team in 2013 before guiding it to world and Olympic titles, has been criticized for relying too heavily on superstar spiker Zhu Ting, who was struggling with a wrist injury, and Yan Ni, who has been nursing a shoulder injury.

Lang strongly indicated she will retire after the Tokyo Games, hoping a young coach can take up the baton.

"We have many good and younger coaches and it's time for them to move the team forward," she said.

Zhu lacked her usual domination at the net and was uncharacteristically error-prone in the opener against Turkey, yet Lang persisted with the Rio Games MVP in the next two matches when it seemed a change was necessary.

The 26-year-old Zhu did not feature against Italy on Saturday, when other players seized their chance to impress and grab a consolation victory.

"We can see through these Games that even Lang was at a loss as how to use a team without Zhu Ting. The head coach and the whole team rest all their hopes on Zhu," one fan opined on netease.com. "Zhu is not superhuman. She is injured but we did not have the braveness to make the changes.

"If we want to keep our elite status for a longer time, we cannot just depend on one or two star players. Volleyball is a team sport. We should give more chances to young players and supporting roles. The rest of the team's players should be able to step up when someone gets injured or fails to deliver."

Club conundrum

In 2019, Zhu returned from a highly successful stint at Turkish club Vakifbank to play with Tianjin in the Chinese Volleyball League. It is believed that Zhu was following the wishes of China's volleyball governing body, who wanted her to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics at home. Inevitably, the wisdom of that move is now being called into question.

"It was a mistake to call Zhu back from the world's best league," read one comment on sina.com.cn. "The domestic league lacks competitiveness and high-level international players. It does not do her form any good."

It has been claimed that Zhu sustained her wrist problem while playing in Europe, with the Chinese governing body opting against surgery and instead choosing a conservative course of rehab so she could continue playing with Tianjin－whom she ultimately led to the league title－and train with the national team.

"I did not expect Zhu's injury to be so serious," said Lang after the loss to Turkey.

The fact that there was no news about the injury in the build-up to the Games would suggest even the head coach was not aware of the problem.

In Tokyo, the vast majority of the world's best players are pursuing their club careers in Turkey, Italy, Russia and Brazil. It would seem pertinent that Zhu and the rest of China's finest do likewise.

"As the governing body, we are encouraging more players to go abroad－some in the lower leagues and the best ones in the top leagues," said Li Quanqiang, director of the China Volleyball Administrative Center. "I hope it will become a trend in the future. We will help them as best we can in this regard."

Balancing this with the needs of domestic clubs, however, is a major conundrum for the governing body.

The Chinese league has previously aspired to become a more attractive destination for the top pros, but has so far fallen well short.

"China's volleyball league needs a professional market like basketball and soccer. We should push the trade exchange between clubs and increase the exchange between home and overseas clubs," Lang once said.

Stunted growth

China is also lagging behind its rivals at grassroots level.

The multitude of youthful talents in the Italy, Serbia and Turkey squads in Tokyo contrasted sharply with China's squad, which featured most of the members from its Rio gold-medal-winning team.

"The national team's long-term development lies in the grassroots," Lang once said. "A systematic grassroots development can continue to offer rising players to the provincial teams and national team. Only that way, can we stay at the world's top level as long as possible."

Former women's team head coach Chen Zhonghe admitted fewer and fewer kids are choosing to play volleyball, and the sport is badly in need of investment in communities and schools.

"The grassroots structure is very weak. We even lag behind Japan and South Korea. The number of people playing volleyball in those countries is much bigger than here," Chen said.

The victory over Italy at least showed the Chinese team's famed fighting spirit remained intact until the end in Tokyo. However, without a solid grassroots foundation, even this will count for little in the future on the increasingly competitive global stage.

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