USA grab men’s bronze medal with fantastic comeback

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, August 21, 2016 – The United States pulled off a sensational comeback from a 0-2 deficit to claim the bronze medal of the men’s volleyball tournament at Rio 2016 with a 3-2 (23-25, 21-25, 25-19, 25-19, 15-13) victory over Russia on Sunday morning at Maracanazinho.

It was the fifth men’s volleyball medal, second bronze to go with three gold medals, for the USA side in the Olympic Games. Reigning champions Russia, the most decorated team in history, were left out of the podium for the first time since Atlanta 1996.

The Americans improved from their fifth place in London after winning their third gold medal in Beijing. They also won the Olympic title in Los Angeles and Seoul before descending to third place in Barcelona.

Matt Anderson and Reid Priddy, who came off the bench late the first set to replace Aaron Russell, were the top scorers for the winners with 21 and 18 points, respectively. Taylor Sander, Maxwell Holt and David Lee also finished with double figures for the winners with 17, 13 and 11, respectively.

Kostyantyn Bakun, Egor Kliuka and Artem Volvich finished with 14 points each for Russia. Alexander Volkov and Sergey Tetyukhin had 10 and 9, respectively, in the loss.

The winners outscored the defeated side 72-52 in attacks to make up for their high number of 32 errors compared to 21 by the Russians. They also led in aces 8-5 with the losers dominating in the blocking category 12-8.