FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship
The FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship is an international volleyball competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of "" (FIVB), the sport's global governing body. The initial gap between championships was variable, but since 1962 they have been awarded every four years. The current champion is Poland, which won its third title at the 2018 tournament defending the championship title. The 2022 World Championship will be held in Poland and Slovenia. It was originally planned to be held in Russia, but due to Russia's 2022 invasion of  Ukraine, Russia was stripped of organization rights. Russia was also banned from the competition, and Ukraine was invited in its stead as the next-highest-ranked team in the World Ranking. The current format of the competition involves a qualification phase, which currently takes place over the preceding three years, to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase, which is often called the "World Championship Finals". 24 teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation(s), compete in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over a period of about a month. The 19 World Championship  tournaments have been won by seven different national teams. Russia (as Soviet Union) have won six times, and they are the only team to have played in every tournament. The other World Championship winners are Brazil, Italy, and Poland, with three titles each; Czech Republic (as Czechoslovakia) with two titles; Germany (as East Germany), and United States, with one title each. History. Origins. The history of the World Championship goes back to the beginnings of volleyball as a professional, high level sport. One of the first concrete measures taken by the FIVB after its foundation in 1947 was the establishment  of an international competition involving teams from more than one continent. In 1949, the first edition was played in Prague, Czechoslovakia. At that point, the tournament was still restricted to Europe. Three years later, the event was expanded to include nations from Asia, and began to be held in 4-year cycles. By the following edition, there were also teams from South, Central and North America. Since volleyball was to be added to the Olympic Program in 1964, the 4-cycles were advanced in 2 years after the fourth edition (1960), so that the World Championship may alternate with the  Summer Olympic Games. As of 1970, teams from Africa also took part in the competition, and the original goal of having members from all five continental confederations in the games was achieved. The number of teams involved in the games has changed significantly over the years. Following volleyball's increase in popularity, they raised steadily to over 20 in the 1970s and part of the 1980s, were then cut short to 16 in the 1990s, and finally set up in 24 after 2002. Today, the World Championship is the most comprehensive of all events organized by the FIVB, and arguably  the most important, alongside the Olympic Games. Until 1974, the host nation of the tournament organized both the men's and the women's events, with the single exception of the 1966/1967 games, which took place in different years. Since 1978, this practice has been only occasionally observed, for instance, in 1998 and in the 2006 edition, which was held, as the former was, in Japan. Winners. The history of the World Championship clearly demonstrates how volleyball was originally dominated by European nations. The first two editions were won by the Soviet Union. In 1956, twice runner-up Czechoslovakia took  the gold. There followed two more consecutive wins for the Soviet Union, in both cases over Czechoslovakia. The Czechs won a gold medal in the 1966 edition. In 1970, East Germany prevailed over Bulgaria for their first and only title. In 1974, the Soviet Union threatened to take the lead once more, but ended up being defeated by Poland at the final. Nevertheless, they would confirm their leadership by winning, for the third time, two editions in a row. 1986 saw the first relevant confrontation between United States, the rising major force of the decade, and the traditional leader Soviet  Union after the Olympic boycotts of 1980 and 1984. As would be the case two years later at the Seoul Olympic Games, the issue was settled in favour of the Americans led by Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons. Italy completely dominated the competition in the 1990s, winning all the editions that took place in this decade (1990, 1994, 1998), led by such players as Lorenzo Bernardi and Andrea Giani. In the 2000s, Brazil became the leading force in the sport, winning three consecutive editions (2002, 2006 and 2010), the first of which in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the same stage where  the Brazilians had been runners-up in 1982. In 2014, Poland, playing in home, defeated Brazil in 4 sets at the final achieving their second gold medal and preventing what would be a historical fourth title in a row. In 2018, Poland won second title in a row, once again defeating Brazil at the final. As of 2018, 19 editions of the men's Volleyball World Championship have been played: 15 went to European teams, and four to American teams (three times to Brazil and once to United States). Competition formula. The competition formula of the FIVB World Championship has  been constantly changed to fit the different number of teams that participate in each edition. The following rules usually apply: Hosts. List of hosts by number of championships hosted. Most successful players. Boldface denotes active volleyball players and highest medal count among all players (including these who not included in these tables) per type. Multiple medalists. The table shows those who have won at least 4 medals in total at the World Championships.