Sunday,
August 10,
The
ANNOTICO Report
Despite
the absence of two key players Antonella Del Core and Taismary
Aguero, the Italians overcame their tall, mighty rival,
who was the
Xinhua -
August 9, 2008
BEIJING, (Xinhua) -- World's No. 2 Italy made a solid first step on their way to the first-ever Olympic gold by upsetting the Athens silver medalist Russia 25-20, 17-25, 25-16, 25-23 at the opener of women's volleyball event on Saturday.
Despite the absence of two key players Antonella Del Core and Taismary Aguero, the Italians overcome their tall, mighty rival with tenacious defense with Nadia Centoni, a substitute to Aguero, contributed 16 points to be team's No.1 scorer.
"I'm very proud of my players. We play a good match with a good rhythm," said Massimo Barbolini. "We learned a lot from the World Grand Prix, we play, we win and we lose and we are getting used to the ups and downs, and all the changes."
"We have made full preparation for the match, psychologically and physically," said Italian captain Eleonora Lo Bianco. "We are sorry Aguero can't be here, but her absence actually drive us to be more united and work even harder."
It is the third time
for
Italy showed strong determination to win from the first minute and they took the lead 3-0 with two out-side spikes by Russian star wing spiders Ekaterina Gamova and Evgenia Estes (Artamonova), who recovered years of injures.
The women's in blue uniforms expanded their advantage to 8-4, but the Russian pulled back with a 5-2 run to get close to at 9-10.
However,
The Russian tall spikers started to showcase fatal offense and solid block in the second set, which made it difficult for Italian side hitters Nadia Centoni and Serena Ortolani to execute.
They led the set 4-3 to 10-6 with powerful service and lethal attack presented by Liubov Shashkova and Estes and finally took the set 25-17 with a duo-block.
The Italians fought back strongly in the third set. They jumped to a 15-9 lead with a 7-2 run and never looked back.
The fourth set is a
fierce as the two teams both exhibit powerful attack and sound defense, but
"The players lost their attention at the court and we have problems in defense and the reception is not good either, especially at the third set," said Caprara.
"We have kept telling my players to be prepared for tough matches, but it seems that I fought here alone. It's a issue of attitude," he said.
With four Olympic golds and five silvers in hand,
"Missing the major international competitions turned out to be a loss for us and we lost the chance to play with strong teams and to be more prepared," said the coach.
After this match, Russia will face on Monday even stronger Brazil, who scored straight set win over Algeria also on Saturday morning, which Italy will meet Kazakhstan.
Twelve women's teams
are divided into two groups in the preliminary round of the Olympic tournament
in
The
knockout stage runs from Aug. 19 to 23.
The
ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed (With Archives*) on:
Blog:
www.AnnoticoReport.com
Italia
Italia Mia: www.ItaliaMia.com *
Topix.net:
www.topix.net/world/italy
Annotico
Email: annotico@earthlink.net