Young bloods display skill, sweat and tears

With young talents honed and some tough lessons learned, China's new-look women's volleyball team kicked off its comeback to international contention with a hard test at the Volleyball Nations League showpiece.

Despite a tearful ending at the hands of its bitter rival Turkiye, China's fresh-faced squad signed off its first major international event in the new Olympic cycle at the VNL's Beijing leg with quite a positive takeaway, leaving fans and pundits alike buoyed by the young unit's growth potential in the build-up to the Los Angeles 2028 Games.

But even with the home crowd clapping on their feet to acknowledge their effort, Chinese players left the court unsatisfied with an opportunity wasted to avenge their quarterfinal loss to Turkiye at Paris 2024, after they let slip a 24-20 advantage in the fourth set, having led 2-1 overall, to lose 3-2 to the European champion on Sunday in the final match at the Beijing tournament.

It wasn't a disgrace at all for the rebuilt team to be narrowly defeated by the women's world No 3 and VNL's 2023 season winner, which provided a steep, yet helpful, learning curve for China's young hopefuls to grow.

"Given the gap between us and the Turkish team at the moment, expectations were not that high (before the match), but I think we proved tonight that we can at least put up a fight against them and make them work," China's outside hitter Zhuang Yushan said after the match at Beijing's National Indoor Stadium.

"We lost the match, but boosted our confidence. I think we will be braver facing world-class opponents in the next event," said Zhuang, who scored 24 points (21 kills, two blocks and one service ace) to lead the host on Sunday.