AVC

it's the asian women's volleyball championship. and as usual, with women's volleyball, my favourite team is Japan.

i'm now watching their semi final match against Thailand, led (in terms of beauty... and she's a very good setter too actually) by Tomkom Nootsara. as for my team, there's some familiar faces from the last time i saw them at Montreaux Volley Masters, such as no.12 Saori Kimura, libero Yuko Sano, no.14 Yukiko Ebata, my last time crush No.13 Risa Shinnabe, no.16 Sakoda (some cameo appearance as subs), and ever present Erika Araki. but now there's some new faces such as no.15 Maiko Kano (also from Montreaux, after double checking), no.10 Nana Iwasaka, but, perhaps surprisingly, there's my old no.7 Mai Yamaguchi!

girls aside, the match was a cracker, going the distance, and my favourite team only just edged Thailand by 15-13 in the rubber. quality stuff.

 and The Boks thrashed Namibia 87-0. who said they were planning to throw up the match to avoid the Wallabies in the knockout rounds?