Russia beat Brazil in Volleyball Championship final

By OSCAR PILIPILI AND FIVB

Russia retained FIVB Women's World Championship title by defeating top-ranked Brazil in a five-set marathon (21-25, 25-17, 20-25, 25-14, 15-11) in final match at Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo.

It was a case of history repeating itself as for the second consecutive World Championship Russia had edged Brazil in Japan in the final match of this quadrennial competition.

Russia captain Maria Borodakova said: "I would like to congratulate Brazil on their play. It was an amazing match. I want to thank our coaches and all the players and all the staff. Our coach really took good care of us."

Brazil player Sheilla Castro said congratulated Russia saying that they deserved to win.

"Russia played well and deserved to win. We prepared for the match, and we overcame some difficult times. But we thought we could have got a better result. In the tie-break we lost it, but there really wasn’t much difference between the two teams," said Castro.

The towering Ekaterina Gamova was literally head and shoulders above the rest of the players, including her team-mates, as she finished the match with 35 points, including four blocks and two serving aces. The Russian ace punished the opposition with a 54.7 percentage of success (29-for-53) with her attacks. Liubov Shashkova, Maria Perepelkina and Tatiana Kosheleva contributed 14, 13 and 10 points respectively.

Castro topped the scoring for Brazil with 26 points, while Natalia Pereira added 18 including five blocks. Jaqueline Carvalho chipped in with 16 tallies.

EPIC MARATHON

Showing no sign of fatigue, from their epic marathon against Japan in semi-finals, Brazil roared ahead 10-3 in the first set, igniting a samba party among hundreds of Brazilian fans wearing yellow and green.

Shashkova led Russia back to 13-10 down before Brazil called a time-out. With the teams trading blows, Fabiana blocked the 202cm Gamova to put Brazil up 16-13 and when Russia failed to rein in Jaqueline’s spike, the lead rose to 20-15.

Coach Vladimir Kuzyutkin called a time-out but Russia soon served their way back into the set, inching to within one point at 21-20 and when a call went against Jaqueline, Russia had parity.

It did not last, Brazil edging back in front before Sheilla’s tip was deflected out to give the South Americans the opening set at 25-21.

Japan upset second-ranked USA 3-2 (18-25, 25-23, 21-25, 25-19, 15-8) to win the bronze medal in front of a full house of 12,000 fans on the final day of the competition last Sunday.