Defending Olympic champs bumped from beach volleyball semis
August 20, 2008
The men’s beach volleyball defending champions from the Athens 2004 Olympics have gone down in a tight semifinal match against their fellow Brazilians.
The pairing of Ricardo Santos and Emanuel Rego were one match away from defending the gold. In today’s match Fabio Magalhaes and Marcio Araujo were too good on the day and took the match 22-20, 21-18.
Ricardo and Emanuel were up against it in the first set after falling behind at 5-10. This margin was slowly reduced and both teams found themselves level at 19-19. It was then 20-20 before the younger and taller pairing took the last two points to take the crucial first set.
In the second set the defending champions took the first point however after that they were always fighting to catch their opponents. Late in the set it was 18-19 for Ricardo/Emanuel. They were not able to score again and the pairing of Marcio Araujo/Fabio Luiz closed out the match.
They will meet the USA pairing of Philip Dalhausser and Todd Rogers who easily defeated Jorge Terceiro and Renato Gomes of Georgia 21-11, 21-13 in the first semifinal.
The men’s beach volleyball gold medal match is scheduled to take place at 11am on August 22 at the Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Ground.
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