Volleyball-Brazil’s women end Turkey’s dream of bronze

PARIS : Brazil denied Turkey a first Olympic medal in women’s volleyball when the South American side won the bronze medal match 3-1 at the Paris Games on Saturday.
The 25-21 27-25 22-25 25-15 victory gave Brazil, runners-up at the Tokyo Games, their third bronze in Olympic women’s volleyball, moving them up to joint-top of the all-time medals table with six.
Gabriela Guimaraes led the way for Brazil with a game-high 28 points, while Thaisa de Menezes – a twice-Olympic champion who came out of retirement last year – had 17 with seven blocks.
Just as in the previous games in Paris, Turkey’s attack flowed through tournament top scorer Melissa Vargas, who scored 26 points in the match, but that also underlined the lack of balance in their squad.
Turkey battled their way to a set point in the second set but Brazil fought back and took a 2-0 lead when they could not deal with a Guimaraes spike.
The third set was tied at 15-15 before Turkey raised their game, racing into the lead and taking it, giving themselves hope of a comeback.
But Brazil were in no mood to hang around in the fourth as Guimaraes and De Menezes took them home, with the latter fittingly applying the final touch to make a block on match point to clinch the bronze.