Background Volleyball, as a sports game, requires from the players high level preparedness with respect to all the motor abilities, as well as an efficient execution of necessary technical and tactical game elements.

Objective The aim of this research is to establish characteristics of the competitive activity structure in female volleyball at European Senior Championships in Bulgaria 2001, in Turkey 2003 and in Croatia 2005.

Design, setting and methods An overall of 48 games of all three championships were analyzed. Comparative analysis of the latent competitive activity structure of female volleyball players was performed by factorial data analysis (factor rotation in Varimax solution).

Results In the latent space of competitive analysis, three independent factors were isolated, justifying 73.76% of overall system variance. Factor 1 (space-time factor) explains 36.12% of overall variance and is defined by the following manifest variables: jumps (0.934), active (0.921) and passive (0.906) time of the game and strikes at ball (0.893). Factor 2 (situational precision) explains 21.46% of all variance and is defined by the following manifest variables: efficiency coefficient (KE) of serve receiving (0.940), followed by KE of ball raising for attack (0.829), and the lowest KE is manifested in field defence (0.815). Factor 3 (technical-tactical efficiency) in latent space of competitive activity explains 16.19% of all variance and is defined by the following manifest realization of technical-tactical elements (0.685), and the smallest and negative KE drops in the variables: KE of attack (0.819), serve KE (0.803), KE block (0.711), success in field defence (−0.558).

Conclusions All the variables significantly contribute to defining of isolated factors, but the greatest contribution belongs to jumps, active and passive time of the game and strikes at the ball, which is logical, because these variables are constant during the entire game. Other variables, that is, isolated factors of situational precision and factors of technical-tactical efficiency, are expressed through them.