  
| The World Cup, one of the three world major competitions
including the Olympics and the World Championship, was inaugurated
in Poland. In those days, volleyball was extremely popular in the
then communist countries, and among eleven participating teams there
were only three teams from democratic countries i.e. Japan, France
and the Netherlands. Nevertheless, Japan with their core players,
Yutaka Demachi and the late Masayuki Minami, beat Bulgaria, the U.S.S.R.
and the D.D.R.(former East Germany) respectively. All these matches
went to a tie-break and Japan finished 4th in the competition. In
the second World Cup, Japan with Katsutosi Nekoda, Seiji Oko and
Tadayoshi Yokota, all of whom won gold medals in the Olympics in
Munich three years later, blanked the U.S.S.R. 3-0 in the final round.
Japan was tied with the D.D.R. with 6 wins and 1 loss and even in
its set-quotient. However, surpassing Japan in point-quotient, the
World Cup was given to the host team, the D.D.R. |
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