Volleyball - Team Italy

General
Italy are the reigning Olympic silver medallists, having lost the gold medal match to Brazil at the 2016 Games. Following a 3-2 semifinal win over the United States of America in Rio, the Italians were unable to reproduce the 3-1 victory they secured over the host nation in the preliminary round, losing the final in straight sets.

Italy secured their 12th consecutive Olympic berth in Tokyo by topping Pool C of the 2019 Intercontinental Qualification Tournament on home soil in Bari. They have finished on the podium at five out of the last six Olympic Games, with Beijing in 2008 the sole exception where they lost the bronze medal match to the Russian Federation. They are yet to win Olympic gold, however, having lost another gold medal match to Brazil in 2004 and in 1996 to the Netherlands.

In contrast to their recent Olympic performances, Italy have not managed to secure a medal at the world championships since 1998 when they won a third consecutive title in Japan. As co-hosts of the most recent edition in 2018 they started strong with just one loss to the Russian Federation in 13 matches in their opening two pool rounds, but were eliminated from the tournament after finishing bottom of their third round pool behind Serbia and Poland. They have enjoyed more success this century at the round robin-format World Cup, with silver medals in 2003 behind Brazil and 2015 behind the United States of America. However, they dipped to their equal-lowest ranking of seventh at the 2019 World Cup following defeats to Japan, United States of America, Poland, Russian Federation, Canada and Brazil.

Italy's only world-level tournament triumph this century came at the 2000 World League, and they failed to progress past the preliminary round of the new Nations League in 2018 and 2019.