TOKYO, 26 May 2004 — China posted a third straight win over their Asian rivals by defeating Iran to remain unbeaten in the men’s volleyball final qualifying round for the Athens Olympics yesterday.

Last year’s Asian championship runners-up squandered match points when leading 24-21 in the third set before finally prevailing against the Asian bronze medalists for a 25-16, 25-23, 31-33, 25-22 victory.

World championship bronze medalists France were 25-16, 25-13, 25-16 winners over Asian champions South Korea for a 3-0 win-loss record to move a step closer toward winning one of the two Olympics berths on offer.

“These three matches against South Korea, Japan and Iran were really tough, especially the match against Japan was the toughest. I’m really glad we won all of them in the end,” said China’s middle blocker Zheng Liang.

Zheng, now 34, and three other veterans, including captain Wang Hebing, came out of retirement to return to the national team in April.

Zheng, Wang and Zhang Xiang played all four sets, while An Jiajie played as a substitute in the last three sets.

China’s coach Di Anhe said the combination of experience and youth had worked well, giving his team a stronger mental edge.

“Our veteran players were very effective in our play today. We practiced for more than one month together and our combination was really good. The best thing is their effect on the younger players mentally,” said Di.

Iran’s South Korean coach Park Ki-won bemoaned his team’s sluggish start.

“Our players started playing our volleyball too slow today, our players started to wake up too slow,” Park said. “We need more experiences in international matches.”

China face France today in the eight-nation round robin tournament. The winner and top-placed Asian team will travel to Athens.

France’s victory yesterday was sweet revenge for their surprise loss to South Korea in the World Cup last year here, where they finished fifth to miss out on an automatic berth in Athens.

“We have a bitter experience when we lost to South Korea in the World Cup, so we really wanted not to repeat this time, we tried to play aggressively against them. I’m very satisfied,” said French captain Dominique Daquin.

“As a volleyball player, it’s been my childhood dream to play in the Olympics. I don’t want to finish my career without playing in the Olympics,” added Daqin.

South Korean coach Cha Joo-hyun said the absence of key player Suk Jin-wook due to injuries was the main factor of his team’s poor performance.

“He (Suk) is a player the team definitely needs. But his knee and shoulder injuries were too serious. As the head coach, I was very disappointed. I must have left him behind because of his future,” said Cha.