Translated material
Useful half
Of the four Russian women's national teams, two continue to fight for medals.
Russia delegated four women's teams to the Olympics in team sports - basketball, handball, volleyball and water polo. Only the masters of the orange and fast ball were able to reach the semi-finals. The water polo players, who arrived in Beijing as European champions, lost all three matches at the preliminary stage and ultimately settled for victory in the classification match of outsider quartets for seventh place. The volleyball players were unable to adapt to the Beijing courts and yesterday ended their performance at the Olympics, losing to the Chinese team in the quarterfinals of the tournament - 0:3 (22:25, 25:27, 19:25). But the basketball and handball players made us happy. The former defeated Spain in the opening round of the playoffs - 84:65, the latter needed two overtimes (each consisting of two periods of five minutes) to prevail over France - 32:31.Such matches, which the world champion Russian team led by Evgeniy Trefilov played against the “tricolors” in the handball tournament, are more suitable for the final in terms of intensity and drama. Our team, losing the entire match by one to four goals, constantly caught up with the opponent and was able to take the lead only at the end of the fourth overtime.
During forced time-outs, Evgeny Trefilov was perplexed as to what his girls were doing. “Why are you running around like idiots! - he shouted during every break. - It's simple. Go ahead and score. There is nothing complicated there." Ours were openly shaking, it was noticeable. But it couldn’t be otherwise. Although this team includes experienced girls who have won at various levels, including world championships, the Olympic tournament in general and the playoffs in particular were the first in their careers for all of them. Probably because of this, the ball often fell out of his hands, and things didn’t go well in finishing attacks. French women are, by and large, from a different league, although the head coach does not agree with this.
“They couldn’t be underestimated,” he said after the match. - The same age athletes play there as we do. “They saved their strength at the preliminary stage, rested, and then bet on the quarterfinals.” Any fan watching this match could have had a heart attack. In regulation time, the Russians most often lost. And almost for the second time in the game they managed to equalize the score when there was less than a minute left before the end of regular time. True, they did it too quickly, and the French team had time not just to attack, but to fully play the ball. They were lucky - their opponents missed, but there were four additional five-minute periods ahead.
In theory, the French women should have broken down, but this still did not happen. Although they had already jumped over their heads, they wanted more. It must be said that the Russian athletes did everything to maintain the intrigue. They turned the opposing goalkeeper into a real star, throwing with all their might not into the goal, but into its body. “It was the problems in the attack that predetermined the nature of the match,” Trefilov said. - There were too many mistakes in the attack. Counterattacks didn't work for us. Seeing this, the defenders got nervous and started having problems.”
In overtime, the tension only grew. The teams were, as they say, neck and neck, and the French were clearly not averse to determining the winner in the seven-meter series. The fact is that their goalkeeper was inspired, repeatedly saving his team. There was an option that Russian girls would simply fall apart psychologically.
But at the finish line, in the last seconds of the meeting, the Russian team still managed to take the lead, when the time on the scoreboard was 0.12 before the siren. Our team remained in the minority on the court, as the tired referees had already “floated” and handed out penalties where there were none nearby. And in general, during the extra periods, both teams did not spare each other, fighting as if someone’s life was at stake. It’s good that our opponents had less winning experience. And in the last 12 seconds. they failed to do anything. “Any player who entered the court in our team did not add, but subtracted,” Trefilov said angrily after the match. “Okay, at least we won.” The Russian team reached the semi-finals, where they will play against the Hungarian team. Our next opponents sensationally beat the Romanian team. Norway and Korea will meet in the other semi-final.
The Russian women's basketball team played against itself again, and the Spanish national team was just a background. Let us recall that these same opponents met in the final of the 2007 European Championship, and then Igor Grudin’s team managed to almost completely squander the 20-point advantage they had gained by the big break. Fortunately, the Spaniards then did not have enough strength or time for a successful chase - they were approaching by a maximum of four points.
This time our team lost the opening segment (4:11), and then even lost by 15 points. At the Olympics in Beijing, Igor Grudin’s team does not want to play simple matches. Apparently, neither he nor the girls are simply interested in this. Having a deficit after the first quarter (10:21), the Russians, who are objectively superior, won the remaining three periods. And even though the advantage of the European champions was minimal before the final segment of the match, this could not deceive anyone. The team already felt the strength and left no stone unturned from the opponent - 84:65. The score of the last quarter is especially eloquent - 28:10. This team always shifts into fourth gear at the very end.
Only in the semifinals the usual scenario for our team may not work. The opponent is the USA. The American team is considered the favorite of the tournament. Although one cannot help but remember that at the “silver” 2006 World Championship for us, the Stars and Stripes, to the surprise of the whole world, were beaten in the semi-finals.
The volleyball players finished the tournament ingloriously. This was partly predictable given the starting failures in the meetings with Italy and Brazil. The team was in a fever throughout the entire preliminary stage; even in games with obvious outsiders, our athletes could not find their real game and won, for example, Kazakhstan and Algeria only due to a significant difference in class.
The only hope remained was that the players of Italian specialist Giovanni Caprara and his wife Irina Kirillova would pull themselves together during the playoffs and beat the strong Chinese team. Even though the hostesses had been preparing for the Olympics since January, our girls started their first training camp in mid-May, barely catching their breath after the most difficult club season.
However, all the team leaders had a dark day on Tuesday. Lyubov Sokolova hit the net very often. Although Ekaterina Gamova brought 15 points, she could not set up her “gun”. And in general, we gave away our balls ourselves. In the second set, the Russian team was in the lead (24:22), but missed out on a local victory, and in the third set the girls felt a psychological breakdown and lack of faith in their own strengths.
After the match, the players publicly apologized to fans and relatives for their poor performance. But this does not make it any easier for anyone: the current world champions are classified in 5th-8th place.