Invincible Americans hold off Russia for first Olympic final in 20 years
22/8/2008 17:45
One day after the American women secured their first final berth in 24
years at Olympic volleyball, the American men spikers also clinched the final
ticket for the first time in 20 years after holding off Russia in a five-set
thrilling semi-final of the Beijing Games in Beijing today.
With the
hard-fought 25-22, 25-21, 25-27, 22-25, 15-13 victory, its seventh straight at
this tournament, the world No. 3 took a sweet revenge on its 3-0 loss to the
European runner-up in the bronze medal match of the Athens Games four years
ago.
It will be the second time in history that both teams of the United
States make the men's and women's volleyball finals of an Olympic Games at the
same time. The Americans, who captured successive triumphs at the Los Angeles
Games in 1984 and the Seoul Games in 1988, will fight for their third Olympic
gold medal against the winner between Brazil and Italy in Sunday's men's
volleyball final.
The Russians rallied from two sets down to force the
tiebreaker where they overcame an early 6-3 deficit to overtake the lead at
12-11, but David Lee scored the last four points of the United States and
stopped ice Russian leading scorer Maxim Mikhaylov to wind up the marathon
match.
Lee finished with 12 points for the 2008 World League champion and
Clayton Stanley served seven aces to lead the American scoring with 19 points,
while Mikhaylov's game-high 31 points turned out to be in vain as the Athens
Games bronze medallists have to play the bronze medal match again.
The first
set was closely contested and it was tied at 11-all before a Sergey Tetyukhin
spike and consecutive blocks of 2.06- meter Alexey Kuleshov and 2.03-meter
Mikhaylov, against Stanley and Lee respectively, pushed Russia up at
14-11.
Stanley, who came into the semi-final as the tournament's second best
scorer chart with 90 kills, 11 blocks and six aces, soon roared back with three
aces in a row to lead the United States to a 5-0 run that helped it surpass
Russia at 17-15. Then the Americans just held on before a serve error of
Mikhaylov awarded the opener to them.
The Russians fought back strongly in
the second set for a 17-14 cushion and held it to 20-17, but the United States
closed out the set with an amazing 8-1 run.
In the third set, Russia was up
again at 20-15 before the Americans steadily pulled within 23-21. After
Mikhaylov drove a ball home to make it 24-21, the Americans beat off three set
points in a row to level it at 24-all, only to see Mikhaylov come up big for a
smash to give Russia its fifth set point, which is converted by Alexander Volkov
through a solid block against Stanley.
The Russians continued its winning
momentum in the fourth set, jumping to a 16-13 lead at the second TTO and never
looked back.
Later today, world No. 1 Brazil will play Italy in the other
semi-final match.
Xinhua
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