Serbia are seeking their first Olympic gold medal, while their neighbours Croatia will join Great Britain, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia as the only teams to win successive men’s water polo titles if they manage to beat the favourites.
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Defending champions Croatia missed their chances and after Serbia took a first-quarter lead, the latter never looked back.
The win breaks a streak of consecutive bronze medals in the 2012 and 2008 Olympics.
“Let’s say we want this from the whole beginning of our careers. Every competition before Rio was one step closer to this goal”. “We don’t want to be under pressure so we will just enjoy the game”, Serbia’s Filip Filipovic said.
Lang, who won a gold medal as a player on China’s national team at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, is the first female head coach to lead a volleyball team to a gold medal in Olympic history.
Savic’s team came through in the second half of the tournament.
In a repeat of last year’s World Championship final, Serbia came out on top again with Dusan Mandic top scoring on four goals. Goalkeeper Branislav Mitrovic saved 12 of 19 shots his way, including seven of 10 from beyond five meters, and five of seven extra player shots attempts.
After their recent dominance of men’s water polo, Serbia added an Olympic gold with a victory over Croatia at the Rio Games.
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Serbia steadied their play in the later rounds with five straight wins on their way to the title against Croatia, which had won a gold medal in London. Bijac has proved crucial to Croatia’s success in the knockout stages, saving two penalties against Brazil and saving 10 of the 18 shots fired at him by Montenegro.
