Slovenia men's volleyball team qualifies for Paris Olympics

Slovenia needed only one more win to earn the ticket to Paris as they had accumulated enough points from the preceding Nations League tournaments in Turkey's Antalya and Japan's Fukuoka, scoring seven victories and suffering only one defeat.

In yesterday's match with Argentina in Stožice Arena in front of some 5,100 spectators, Slovenia were clearly a better team, earning a hard-fought 3:0 (23, 22, 27) victory to join the eight nations that have so far qualified for the Summer Olympics.

Tonček Štern was the leading scorer for Slovenia with 21 points, including one ace, followed by Klemen Čebulj with 13 points and captain Tine Urnaut with nine, including one block.

It will be the first time ever that the Slovenian men's team will play in the Olympic tournament from 27 July to 10 August, which will feature only 12 teams placed in three groups.

Slovenia's head coach Gheorghe Cretu said that "for me, these are the most beautiful moments in my career," adding that the Olympic appearance was a dream come true for him and the players.

"Their dream coming true is the result of many years of work. I'm sure that they can play even better and achieve even more in Paris," he added.

Urnaut said that "although we had already done much of the work in the first two tournaments, the qualification for Paris has not been confirmed until now. We played in a difficult situation against a very difficult opponent."

Slovenia will continue the Nations League tournament in Ljubljana by facing Cuba on Thursday and Italy on Saturday, and will wrap it up with Sunday's encounter with Serbia.