Press release

London, Great Britain, August 6, 2012 – “We took a long time to heat up and get to our best. We do have a level to match the top-level teams” said Australia Thomas Edgar, who will have to wait the match Great Britain vs Argentina to know if their Olympic Games are finished. “Great Britain can play some good volleyball, but Argentina are one of the high-level teams, so we'd be surprised (if Great Britain won).”

Zbigniew Bartman commented: “We didn't play very well. We didn't play good tactics and if we play like that we should expect to lose. If we play like we did today, we could lose against anybody.”

Poland coach Andrea Anastasi was furious: “We lost. We played bad. If we played well we did not lose. We lost control in the beginning and we were not really fighting. I have no explanation. If you spike out, you spike out. It was not a technical problem. It was a mental problem.”

 “It has been an amazing tournament for us” said Jon Uriarte, Australia coach. “This is the first time ever for this team to be in the Olympic Games. It is clear how they have improved day by day and now a big win against one of the best teams in the world. In our early matches, the tension was huge, we were not able to relax. Now you can feel the tension, but slowly we got into our business and we showed against Italy we can win against the top teams. This group is very smart. I can tell you the evolution has been huge. Honestly, I trusted this group a lot - how they are able to absorb experience. They have only been together for 13 months.”