Wei Jizhong, the president of the international federation of volleyball, attributed China's loss in the Olympic women's quarterfinals to the mistake of their coach.
The Chinese team, coached by Yu Juemin, finished fifth in the Olympic tournament, one of the worst results in a decade.
"The Chinese team are nearly on the same level with Japan and South Korea. But they lost to Japan. I think it was a mistake of the coach," said the 76-year-old Chinese, who's going to retire from his office in September.
"But this is a good thing for them. If they win, they will continue to use the players and the coach. Because they lost, they will think about using young players. I believe they will have a new bright future," said Wei.
In Wei's eyes, the over-use of veterans in the women's event has affected the competition level of the London Games.
"We have a technical evaluation group here. In London, for men's team, competition is of high level. There are some talented new players and new technic. For the women's, however, it is not good as expected," said Wei.
"The reason is that women's teams have too many old players. They did their best, but due to the age, they can't reach high level.
"After the London Games, we will have a big leap forward. New players will join in the competition, while old players retire, giving their place to youngsters, so we can say that volleyball is going to welcome a new generation."
According to Wei, the FIVB have decided to create youth world championships every two years to prepare a young generation for the beach volleyball and volleyball.
