Canadian men in Olympic volleyball qualifying position with 3-set sweep of China

Canada scored a three-set win over China on Wednesday to improve to 3-1 at the men's volleyball Olympic qualification tournament.

Stephen Maar, of Aurora, Ont., paced the attack with 20 points in Xi'An as Canada blanked the host Chinese 3-0 (25-19, 25-22, 26-24).

Eric Leoppky, of Steinbach, Man., had 17 points, while Jordan Schnitzer, of Surrey, B.C., chipped in with 10.

The victory moved Canada into second place in Pool C behind top-ranked Poland (4-0).

Only the top two countries from each of the tournament's three pools advance to the Paris Olympics next summer.

Canada, ranked 14th in the world, is scheduled to face No. 25 Bulgaria (2-2) on Thursday at 10 p.m. ET. The match will be streamed live on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.

The Canadians then battle No. 21 Belgium (Friday, 10 p.m.) and No. 22 Mexico (Sunday, 4 a.m.) in single-match round robin pool play.

Last month, Canada fell to the United States in the gold-medal match at the NORCECA Continental Championship in Charleston, W.Va.

Canada entered the final with a 3-0 record following a semifinal victory over Cuba and sweeps of the Dominicans and Mexico.

The Canadians have made five appearances in Olympic men's volleyball, recording their best finish in Los Angeles 1984 with a bronze medal. Canada was defeated in the quarterfinals in Rio (2016) and Tokyo (2021).

The women finished third in their group nine days ago in Ningbo, China, missing a chance to clinch an Olympic spot and instead will likely have to improve upon its No. 11 world ranking next summer to gain entry to the 12-team tourney.

#20 Jordan Canham — Avonmore, Ont.
#13 Samuel Cooper — Hamilton
#97 Landon Currie — Coldstream, BC
#6 Danny Demyanenko — Toronto
#1 Pearson Eshenko — Banff,