The China Volleyball Association apologised for failing to remind its players to remove their facial masks during their match against Iran during the 2022 Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Women's Cup.
The Chinese women's volleyball team wore N95 facial masks in a match they won against Iran, sparking an online debate as to why they played with their masks on.
In its response, the association thanked the public for the concerns for the women’s team, noting that it would use the incident as a lesson to avoid such from happening again.
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"Since the organizing committee did not have clear regulations on whether athletes should wear masks during the match, our athletes wore masks after the start of the match to protect themselves," the association wrote.
"Due to our lack of experience on the field, we did not remind the players to take off their masks in time."
According to the association, the organizing committee has not made clear regulations on whether athletes should wear facial masks during competition.
It added that in the second half of the set, they realized that the players were being affected while playing with the masks on and asked them to take them off.
“Before the competition, the team learned that some athletes in other teams had been infected with COVID-19, and some of our players also had symptoms; we required all athletes to wear masks when entering competition venues in order to protect players from being infected,” the association stated.
The Chinese women's volleyball team is among the best in the world having won gold in the 2019 World Cup.
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