China’s Zhang Changning to miss Volleyball World Championships, says she won’t return to national team any time soon
- Zhang says her absence from the game will continue because of ‘my physical and psychological condition’
- Head coach Cai Bin is also without injured star spiker Zhu Ting, as he names squad for next month’s tournament
China volleyball star Zhang Changning has announced she will not return to action any time soon.
After nearly 11 months on the sidelines, reports had surfaced that she could come back into the national team fold in August, ahead of next month’s Women’s Volleyball World Championships in Poland and the Netherlands.
But the 26-year-old wrote in a Weibo post this week that she has long been suffering from injury problems, and indicated she needed more time to fully recover.
“Both my physical and psychological condition mean I am unable to compete in high-level competitions right now,” Zhang wrote in her post on China’s Twitter-like social media platform.
“Compared to physical pain, I’m more afraid of the feeling of powerlessness.”
However Zhang – who was an integral part of the China side that won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics – insisted her latest statement did not mean she was retiring.