Italy ended the American men’s gold-medal aspirations for a second straight Olympics.
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The 27-year-old Italian with the spiky hair and tattoos simply refused to let it slip away, contributing an inspirational performance. Italy also is a flawless 5-0 in Rio, winning by a combined score of 51-31.
“This team fought the entire time”, Lee said. “It was a great match”.
Earlier on Sunday, the United States men’s volleyball team recovered to defeat defending Olympic champions Russian Federation in a five-set battle for the bronze medal. It was the second straight silver for Brazil after losing to the U.S.at the Beijing Games in 2008.
“It’s really really hard”, U.S. Coach John Speraw said. “I nearly feel like today we need to mourn and just get it out of our system. I just wish we had done a little better job defensively”.
Said middle blocker Max Holt: “They just outplayed us there. You can never count them out”.
It got physical, very physical, and that’s just fine with the US women’s water polo team. “We just didn’t do it”.
Before Rio, the US and Brazil had between them won 20 of the 30 medals since the sport’s introduction to the Olympics at Atlanta in 1996. But this team features eight new players from the group in 2012.
The American women were favorites to win their first gold, but, like their men’s team, had to settle for bronze. “It’s a dream that can continue”.
Italy started fast and opened up an early three-point lead but by the midway point of the first set, Brazil had pulled out a four-point gap over their error-prone opponents. “Because in the World League of 2013 against the US he had three aces or something like that”. The U.S. took set point again at 26-25, but was then charged with a violation. We couldn’t sustain that same level we had in the second and third to put the team out in the fourth set.
It was a fourth final in a row for Brazil, who also beat Italy in Athens in 2004 before losing to the U.S. in Beijing and suffering a Russian comeback four years ago in London after leading by two sets to nil.
Poked and prodded by Hungary, the US pushed back with its relentless attack.
Now the players will have to shift their focus from gold to bronze. We get another chance to play together. Getting a medal is wonderful.
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“Bummer it’s not the right color. We’re going to treat it like a gold-medal match”.
