Brazilian Women claim Olympic gold for first time with victory over USA
USA won the silver medal for the second time after winning it in Los Angeles 1984, when their now Head Coach "Jenny" Ping Lang won gold as a player with China.
Brazil, who finally dropped a set in the tournament against a team when USA took the second, looked formidable approaching the event and throughout. Despite recently winning their seventh World Grand Prix title, though, the South Americans had never won the Olympics, FIVB World Championships or FIVB World Cup.
The win denied the USA the chance to sweep the Olympic gold medals in Volleyball and Beach Volleyball. USSA's Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers had won gold in the men's Beach Volleyball, while compatriots Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh did the same in the women's event.
In the bronze-medal match, 2004 Athens Olympic champions China won 25-16, 21-25, 25-13, 25-20 against three-time Olympic champions Cuba in front of 12,500 fans at Capital Indoor Stadium.
Brazil and USA will compete in the Men's gold-medal match on Sunday, August 24, at 12:00 local time at Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing. The bronze-medal match between Italy and Russia will take before the final at 10:00 local time at the same venue.
It is the second time that the two finalists in the Men's and Women's tournament are the same. In 1968, USSR and Japan faced each other in both competitions.
There have been two occasions when the Men's and Women's tournaments have had the same country winners, with USSR winning both events in 1968 and 1980, when the Women beat East Germany and the Men downed Bulgaria.
Italian referee Massimo Menghini officiated his last match in the Women's gold-medal contest as first referee. Umit Sokullu will be second referee.
China 3 Cuba 1
Just as their favorite song - "Sunshine Comes after Rainstorm" - goes, a smiling Chinese team rallied to remedy their semifinal loss with a consoling bronze medal at the Olympic Women's Volleyball on Saturday. Cuba finished their Beijing journey in fourth place. Inspired by the deafening cheers of the Chinese fans, the host won in the pride-saving match.
Due to a slow start, China opened the match with a dismal 2-6, when the ace spikers Wang Yimei and captain Feng Kun scored five points to help the host take over lead 7-6. Though the Cubans followed up closely, the Chinese managed to keep a slight advantage to 14-13. China launched a stunning 8-2 run to enlarge the gap to 22-15. Wang's service error helped Cuba pull back one point, but her two ace serves helped China take the set 25-16.
The Cuban spikers came back to life in the second set to establish an early led 9-4 with quick spikes of Nancy Carrillo and Yanelis Santos. China strived to catch up before a 17-all, when Carrillo and another high jumper Rosir Calderon broke the tie and crushed China's attempts to bounce back with attacks from the left flank and the middle court, 24-21 in favor of Cuba. Veteran captain Yumilka Ruiz sealed the set 25-21 with an unanswered spike.
China staged a brilliant attacking wave from the start of the following set with a 8-4 lead and extended the winning momentum to take the set 25-13. China took an early lead 10-5 and 15-10 in the fourth set, when Cuba surged back 20-21 with the astonishing performance of its wing hitter Calderon. But that was the furthest they could go. China clinched the meaning victory 25-20 with a spike of middle blocker Zhao Ruirui.
China Head Coach Zhonghe Chen said: "Cuba is our friend. Over the past years and even in this year, we had lots of matches together. In the preliminaries, we lost to them. At that time, the Cuban coach said that he hoped that we could meet in the final and compete for the gold. Unfortunately, both of us didn't make it to the gold-medal match. In today's match, we delivered a stable psychological state considering that the day before yesterday we lost to Brazil and many players cried. How to adjust their mental state was a big problem for us. Fortunately, we made it today. To beat the Cuban team is a tough job. But today they were too eager to win, so they made too many mistakes. They didn't deliver their best performance."
Women's final standings
1 Brazil (gold medal)
2 USA (silver medal)
3 China (bronze medal)
4 Cuba
Joint 5: Italy, Japan, Russia, Serbia
Joint 9: Kazakhstan, Poland
Joint 11: Algeria, Venezuela
Men's finals: Sunday, August 24
10:00 Bronze-medal match, Russia-Italy, Capital Indoor Stadium, Beijing
12:00 Gold-medal match, Brazil-USA, Capital Indoor Stadium, Beijing
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