London 2012: Brazil with happy end. Italy humiliated by the Korea

Brazil defeated Russia and made a surprise gaining qualification to semifinal. The defending champion won in tie-break and finished Ekaterina Gamova’s international career. China will not maintain a medal run and will not repeat achievements from Beijing and Athens. Yeon Kim led Korea to the biggest surprises of the tournament. American women have not given opportunities Dominicans Republic.

 

Russia 2 – 3 Brazil

Top scorers: L. Sokolova 28, E. Gamova 25, N. Goncharova 25; Sheilla C. 27, Thaisa M. 24, Fabiana C. 14

Fantastic, wonderful, amazing, extraordinary. You should use only such adjectives describing the quarterfinal match between Brazil and Russia which was the best volleyball competition among women this year or maybe, the best game during the whole Olympic cycle.

Brazil qualified for the semis of the 2012 Olympics after a memorable match where the 2008 Olympic champions stormed back twice from one set down and even saved six match balls to eventually edge Russia 3-2 (24-26, 25-22, 19-25, 25-22, and 21-19). Sheilla Castro paced Brazil with 27 points while Thaisa Menezes chipped in with 24; Russia’s offense was anchored by Liubov Shashkova with 28, as 25 points apiece were scored by Ekaterina Gamova and Nataliya Goncharova.

The game was really emotional, lasting for more than 2 hours and 20 minutes, and packed with continuous turnarounds, with the South Americans always believing in their chances to make it to the next stage of the competition. Russian star and FIVB hero Ekaterina Gamova bid farewell to the national team at the end of this match as she had announced before traveling to London the Olympics would have been her last appearance with the jersey of the “sbornaya”.

Brazil will compete with Japan in semis-final.

Japan 3 – 2 China

Top scorers: Y. Ebata 33, S. Kimura 33, R. Shinnabe 12; R. Hui 26, Y. Wang 22, J. Yang 11

Team Japan were the first to qualify for the semi-finals of the women’s volleyball tournament as Saori Kimura and Yukiko Ebata scored 33 points apiece to eventually edge China 3-2 (28-26, 23-25, 25-23, 23-25, and 18-16) at the end of a classy match that was followed by some 15,000 fans at Earls Court. Japan were actually close to finish it off in the fourth set but eventually could not capitalize on their lead there while China missed out on two match balls in the tie-break. This is a very special moment for Team Japan that come back to the semis at the Olympics after 24 years, the last top four finish dating back to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

Additionally, Japan scored their first win over China in 11 years as far as FIVB competitions are concerned, even though the group currently mentored by Masayoshi Manabe had edged their Asian archrivals four times in the past few years, but exclusively in invitational tournaments or in friendly matches. Ruoqi Hui and Yimei Wang paced China’s offense with 26 and 22 points but Japan stayed cool to fire up the celebrations of their many fans in the stands. The result is really significant especially since Japan had claimed, up to today, only 6 out of 45 official international matches with China. In the semis coming up on Thursday Japan will play Brazil.

USA 3 – 0 Dominican Republic

Top scorers: D. Hooker 19, F. Akinradewo 12, J. Larson 11; P. Rivera 14, B. De la Cruz 12, C. Arias Perez 7

The United States extended their winning streak also to the 1/4 finals of the women’s volleyball tournament downing the Dominican Republic in straight sets (25-14, 25-21, and 25-22) to qualify for the semis scheduled for Thursday and play there the winning side of the last game on schedule for Tuesday, Italy or Korea.
Via this classy performance the players coached by Hugh McCutcheon re-asserted their role as top contenders for the gold medal that will be at stake later this week. 
Destinee Hooker paced Team USA with 19 points with Foluke Akinradewo and Jordan Larson also finishing in double digits with 12 and 11 respectively while Prisilla Rivera and Bethania de la Cruz were once more the major force in offense for the Caribbean side with 15 and 12.

Italy 1 – 3 Korea

Top scorers: A. Del Core 16, S. Gioli 14, L. Bosetti 13, Y-K. Kim 28, S-Y. Han 17, H-J. Yang 12

It is the biggest surprise of the Olympics. Korea qualified for the semis of the 2012 Olympics by edging Italy 3-1 (18-25, 25-21, 25-20, and 25-18) anchored by the 28 points scored by their star Kim Yeon-Koung thereby making it to the top four for the first time since the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. Italy’s offense was evenly distributed with five players finishing in double digits – and Antonella Del Core top scoring with 16 – but after a good start their play got somehow stuck and the defeat turned this Olympic campaign into another major disappointment after Italy had already failed to find their way to the semis in Athens and in Beijing. Having already taken one set from the USA in the prelims, Korea are expected to be a very tough opponent for the stellar US American side coached by Hugh McCutcheon in the semis on Thursday.

Semifinals

Brazil – Japan 09 – Aug 19:30 local time/ 20:30 CET

Korea – USA 09 – Aug 15:00 local time/ 16:00 CET

 

Source: own news/ FIVB
 

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