Quote:
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Originally Posted by FMadera
In international rules, a player must play the ball within their own playing space, except for a legal block. It's where their hands are when the ball is played that determines if it's a legal play. The position of the ball with regard to a team contact isn't the criteria for legal vs. illegal, unlike NFHS or NCAA.
It was the proper call.
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I watched another match, I believe it was Italy vs Venezuela (not important to the story), and the received ball was badly passed to the front-row setter who subsequently reached over the net and slightly into the opponent's court to one-hand set the ball back onto their side. Point of emphasis: the ball was clearly "partially" within the plane of the net, so the ball had not yet completely crossed the plane of the net. This action is illegal because of the location of the setters contact with the ball, in the opponent's court, and the R1 whistled the fault. The official was correct.
However, the sports commentator (I'm almost positive it wasn't Karch, I think it was Chris, but even "that" surprises me)... he started verbalizing his frustration with the calls. This commentator said (paraphrased) "the referee blew that call, that ball was clearly still within the plane of the net, the setter has every right to save that ball...
See, look where the ball is, part of it is still in the plane of the net. The referee just got that call wrong. They have been calling it like this consistently throughout the whole Olympics, but they can't make that call, it's not illegal. Maybe the FIVB asked the Olympic officials to call this, but they can't, there's nothing illegal about it, but they have definitely been consistent with this call the whole time." What the commentator saw, in slow-motion, was the setter reaching into the opponent's court to bring the ball back onto their side. That is illegal, the official got the call absolutely correct, and slow-motion proved it... the sports commentator is apparently unaware of the rule change "from a few years ago." But kudos to all of the Olympic officials... as the commentator said, all the officials have been calling this "consistently throughout the whole Olympics"... good, they're calling consistently correct matches... while knocking the officials, the commentator unintentionally threw a huge compliment to them. Hurray, side-out on commentator, one point officials.