World Organization Volleyball for Disabled
Encyclopedia
The World Organization Volleyball for Disabled (WOVD) is an international organization that is for people with physical disabilities, WOVD is affiliated with the International Paralympic Committee
International Paralympic Committee
The International Paralympic Committee is an international non-profit organisation and the global governing body for the Paralympic Movement. The IPC organizes the Paralympic Games and functions as the international federation for nine sports...

(IPC). The World Organization Volleyball for Disabled was established in 1951 and was part of the International Sports Organization for Disabled(ISOD). In 1992 the WOVD became its own separate Organization in Barcelona, Spain. The WOVD Headquarters were also established in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

.
The WOVD is responsible for managing and controlling the conduct of international volleyball competitions for men, women and youth. The WOVD also liaises with IPC (as an independent organisation) and with other organizations for people with or without disabilities.

History

As volleyball caught on and became a popular sport and the Olympics became increasingly popular, the paralympic games started coming into play. The first paralympic games were played in 1960 in Rome immediately after the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

. By 1976, amputees started participating in the paralympics. In 1967 the Dutch introduced a new game called sitting volleyball, which is a combination of sitzball and volleyball. Then in 1978 the ISOD accepted sitting volleyball in its programs. The first official tournament took place in 1979 in Haarlem, Netherlands, and then the in 1980 sitting volleyball was accepted as a Paralympic sport with seven players.
Since 1993, Sitting Volleyball championships have been organized for men and women. It has become one of the main team-sports in the Paralympic Programme. It is a fast, exciting and crowd pleasing sport, which can show the athletic skills of disabled sportsmen/women.

Standing Volleyball for the Disbaled, was played by athletes with disabilities long before the international federation was founded. It has its roots in Great Britain and was originally played only by amputee players. To encourage the participation on those ones with a more severe amputation, a classification system has been set up and players on court must follow certain rules. Teams must respect these classification rules to ensure an equitable team composition. International competitions have taken place since the 1960s, although it was not until 1976 that volleyball was accepted into the Paralympic Games Programme, in Toronto, Canada. Since 1980 volleyball has had a regular international calendar.

Origin

The game of Volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

 was created by William G. Morgan,a YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...

 physical education director, on February 9, 1895, in Holyoke, Massachusetts
Holyoke, Massachusetts
Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range of mountains. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 39,880...

(USA). When Morgan first created the game of volleyball it was called Minonette. The first rules, were written down by Morgan. The game of volleyball was not officially called volleyball until 1896 and was two separate words. As the years went on it later became one word, then a special ball was designed for volleyball in 1900. 64 years later in 1964 Men's and Women's volleyball were introduced as an Olympic sport. Later in 1884 the Men's team won its first Olympic medal and later men's beach volleyball was added as an Olympic sport in 1996.

Sitting Volleyball

Athletics and Sitzball - originating from Germany - were the main sports. Soon it was found that Sitzball, which is played sitting down on the floor, was too passive; more mobile forms of sports were looked for.
With Sitting Volleyball, the disability of a player is no longer a handicap. Since
players must be sitting on the floor when hitting the ball, only the skill is important,
not the disability. This produces a very competitive sport.

In 1956, the Dutch Sports Committee introduced a new game called Sitting Volleyball, a combination of sitzball and volleyball. Since then Sitting Volleyball has grown into one of the biggest sports practised in competition not only by the disabled in the Netherlands, but also by interested "able-bodied" volleyball players with an injury of the ankle or knee.

Sitting Volleyball has the radiation to grow into a sport in which the disabled and non-disabled persons can play on a high technical level.
Sitting Volleyball is played with six players per team on a smaller volleyball court with lowered nets. This version enables double leg amputees and individuals with spinal injuries and various other disabilities to play volleyball. Besides a few rules regarding physical advantages, all nondisabled rules apply.

Standing Volleyball

Standing Volleyball which is the only team sport that can be played ‘standing’ by people with physical disabilities. The Amputee athletes have a choice to play with or without prostheses. Depending on the sense of balance, some above the knee amputees will choose to play without a prosthesis hopping on a single leg. Standing volleyball is played on an integrated FIVB rules.
The game of Standing Volleyball decided to allow other disability groups to take part, therefore encouraging more nations to participate. Although this initially created more classification problems, the WOVD finally, after four years, established criteria for classification, which includes those players with various arm or leg disabilities.
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