USA back on top in men’s volleyball after claiming Olympic gold
August 24, 2008
It has been a long time since the glory days of US volleyball back in the mid to late 80’s. Things are looking good for US volleyball once again after the men’s team claimed the Olympic gold medal with a 3-1 victory over Brazil. This comes on top of its first World League title earlier this year.
In the Gold medal match Brazil started well and took the first set 25-20. The Brazilians had a slight buffer after jumping out to a 3-0 lead. In the second set it was the Americans who got the early lead as they went out to 6-0. This was enough to see them take the second set 25-22. The Brazilians had got it back to 21-20 but could not edge past the USA.
The third set was tight to start with before team USA took a slight advantage to get out to a 16-12 lead. Brazil got it back to 21-19 down before taking the pressure off the US with a few service faults. This helped USA take the set 25-21.
The fourth set was pretty tight most of the way through. Until Brazil took a 20-17 lead it was just a see sawing affair where Brazil had a two point lead from time to time. With the 3 point buffer you would have favoured Brazil taking it to a fifth set to decide the gold.
USA were not giving up that easily. Some great pickups and good allround play saw the US make a run from 17 to 22. Some key plays included two kill blocks by Clayton Stanley. The Brazilians finally got a point to make the score 22-21 in favour of the US.
From here the USA were pumped as they could almost reach out and touch the gold. Another kill block from Stanley and a spiking error from Brazil saw the Olympic gold medal point come up. It took just one for the USA to wrap it up.
The celebrations started!!
Congratulations to the US men’s volleyball team. It has been a good Olympics for the USA on the volleyball courts, both indoors and out. The women took silver and on the beach volleyball courts the USA picked up both gold medals.
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