With no surprise, the reigning champion Chinese women's volleyball team scored a straight win over Olympic debutant Venezuela in the overwhelming cheers of some 12,000 home fans.
The return of star player Zhao Ruirui, who has rarely appeared at the global stage for her knee injure at the Athens Games, was eager for her second, but "the first well-deserved" Olympic gold, with 12 points for China, the highest among her teammates.
The 1.96-meter middle blocker had her knee injured at the first match of the 2004 Games and had to sit on the bench to watch the rest matches
"Today, that's the very first Olympic match for me in a real sense and I'm very excited to perform at the home court. I'm will fight for my goal with my teammates match by match," said Zhao.
The home advantage also brought pressure the defending champions.
China's head coach Chen Zhonghe said he personally had a lot of pressure to play the Olympics at homeland and so did his players.
"My players seem to be nervous at the beginning of every set and there is also too many service errors," he said. "I gave them a 70 for the so-so performance."
Venezuela showed high spirit in front of the taller Chinese and their high jumpers Desiree Glod, Maria Jose Perez and Aleoscar Blanco posed a threat to China with high quality out-side attacks. However, the inexperienced South American squad made chains of service and defense errors and could hardly find ways to deal with China's fast-attack style of play.
Confident China took the first two sets with the same 25-13.
China sent its substitute squad on the court at the third set and took an early lead 4-1, when Venezuela staged a stunning 5-2 run to catch them up 6-6. The two sides traded leads to tie it at 9-all before China overtook the lead 12-9. The Chinese never looked back and it won the set and the match with a cross-court spike of Wang Yimei and a serve error of Venezuela.
"We made many errors, particularly in blocking and serving, so we lost. But in the future we hope not to have so many errors," said the Venezuelan captain Jayce Andrade.
After this match, China will play on Monday European rising force Poland, who, however, lost their first match against Cuba early in the afternoon, while Venezuela will meet Japan.
Twelve women's teams are divided into two groups in the preliminary round of the Olympic tournament in Beijing that run through Aug. 9-17. Italy is grouped with Algeria, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Russia and Serbia in Pool B while defending champion China is with Cuba, Japan, Poland, USA and Venezuela in Pool A.
The knockout stage runs from Aug. 19 to 23.
(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2008)
