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 USA/USA
The U.S. Men’s national
Volleyball team is looking to regain some of the
shine that it had when it won three straight Olympic
medals in Los Angeles (gold in 1984), Seoul, South
Korea (gold in 1988) and Barcelona, Spain (bronze in
1992). The team has been steadily improving under
the guidance of Hall of Fame head coach Doug Beal
and just missing out on a medal at the 2003 World
Cup in Japan, where the team finished fourth, has
left the players thirsty for success at the 2004
Olympic Games.
The World Cup provided the United States Volleyball
players with just the tonic they needed following a
disappointing 2002 season in which a relatively
young team went 19-17 and finished ninth at the
World Championships in Argentina. At that tournament
the men won their first four matches, including a
come-from-behind five-set thriller over eventual
world champions Brazil, and was in a perfect
position to reach the quarterfinals. But a crushing
five-set loss to Greece and a four-game setback to
Serbia and Montenegro in the final match of the
second round ended that particular season for Team
USA.
“What we showed in 2002 was we have the ability to
play at a very high level,” said head coach Doug
Beal. “Now we have to show that we have not only the
ability to play at that level, but the maturity and
the consistency to play at that level for every
match of a long tournament. We have to play at a
very high level for a much longer period of time.”
The Americans made their Olympic debut in 1964 when
Volleyball first became a full medal sport at the
Olympic Games. Their ninth place in Tokyo, a seventh
place four years later in Mexico, but most of all
the absence of the United States from the next three
tournaments did not foretell the great success that
would follow in the 1980s.
In the meantime, the Americans won the 1986 World
Championship title, while their collection also
comprises another bronze medal from the event held
in Athens in 1994. In 1992, they had to settle for
third place in the World League but celebrated their
victory in the 1985 World Cup in Tokyo, with their
most recent success in the event being the 1991
bronze medal. |
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