Chinese men's volleyballers celebrated a long-waited victory at Olympic Games with more than 12,500 home fans after a five-set tussle with Venezuela on Tuesday.
The hard-earned triumph, coming after China's 24-year absence from the Olympic court, laid a solid foundation for the host to realize its goal of "entering the final eight" after losing the opening match 1-3 to strong Bulgaria.
Venezuela showed great fighting spirit and high-level offense at their Olympic debut on Sunday despite a 2-3 loss to the United States, the World League champion this year.
China came back from two sets down to end the two-hour toil. Captain Shen Qiong contributed the team with 17 points, while Ernardo Gomez led the Venezuelan scorers with 27 points.
"We knew it would be a tough match and it was. Persistence and patience helped us to stick to the end," said China's head coach Zhou Jian'an. "I asked the player to calm down after the third set collapse and they did."
Chinese players, all Olympic debutantes, huddled at the court, yelled their excitement and then bowed to fans after the match.
"I'm so happy we won. No victory comes easily. But we will fight even harder for another," said Shen.
The two teams, grouped with strong teams Italy, U.S. and Bulgaria, are both in desperate need to win the match to secure a quarterfinal berth.
In the first set, China polished its defense system with effective blocking to stand at 3-1, but the Venezuela answered back with a 3-1 run to a 4-4 draw with devastating spikes of Ernardo Gomez.
A quick spike of outside hitter Yuan Zhi helped China to break the tie and the Chinese managed to keep a slight advantage to 20-17 with sound blocking and chains of offense faults by their rivals.
Venezuela head coach was forced to call for a time-out in time. The team then pulled back two points before China staged 4-1 run to take the match point 24-20. Liuz Daiz saved one set point with a powerful spike, but his teammate Freddy Cedeno helped China take the opener with an out-of-the-court serve.
China maintained its rhythm at the early stage of the following set to stay within 9-7, but Venezuela pulled back with 10-6 run to take over lead 17-15. The South American were proved to be more fierce attackers than their rivals by improving their advantage to 24-21. With an ace serve, Venezuela pulled one set back with an identical 25-21.
High-spirited Venezuel controlled the third set with mighty offense presented by Ivan Marquez and Gomez and took the third set 25-16.
The fourth set turned out to be almost a repeat of the opener as China fought back strongly to take an early lead 6-1 with strong serves and spikes of Guo Peng. Strings of unforced errors from Venezuela helped China go further from 14-8 to 24-20. After missing one match point, China clinched the set 25-21 with another serve error.
Venezuela took early lead 5-1in the decider, but China strived to catch up to 8-8 draw, when the set became a tit-for-tat battlefield. The two sides exchanged lead 12 times to tie 14-all. With a pair of blocks, China win the match 16-14.
China will face challenge from old rival Japan on Thursday and Venezuela will play Athens silver winner Italy.
Twelve teams are competing in two groups in the preliminary round with top four finishers from each group to qualify for the quarterfinals.
China is grouped with Italy, the World Cup bronze medalist Bulgaria, the U.S., Japan and Venezuela and defending champion Brazil, Russia, Serbia, Egypt, Poland and German are in Group B. The knockout stages run from Aug. 20 to 24.
(Xinhua News Agency August 12, 2008)