Cuba record golden treble

Russia: Failed to cope with the powerful Cubans

Champions Cuba put Russia to the sword in the Olympic final of the women's volleyball to claim their third consecutive gold medal.

The defending champions showed real character to rally from two sets down to defeat the world number two seeds and complete a unique Olympic volleyball gold medal hat-trick and take their gold medal tally to 11.

It was a closely fought contest from start to finish, with the luck going with the Cubans in the final set.

The Russians, who played the better volleyball early on, can count themselves unlucky with the defeat but the Cubans experience proved too much for their opponents who eventually lost 3-2 (25-27 32-34 25-19 25-18 15-7).

Led by the dynamic leaper Yumilka Ruiz, the Cubans overcame a much taller Russian team to become the first volleyball team, men's or women's, to win three golds in a row.

Second

Russia, who finished second to Cuba at the 1999 World Cup and second again in last month's grand prix finals, looked determined to change the pattern at the start.

Chachkova: Strong server

Using crisp passing to set up their towering front line, featuring Elena Godina and Evguenia Artamonova, Russia grabbed all the important points to power their way through the opening sets.

Russia had to save three set points from 24-21 in the first set, closing it out when Taimaris Aguero dumped a pass down low to Ruiz, who was not expecting the ball and let it drop.

The second set was a tight struggle, with neither team enjoying more than a one-point lead from 13-12 until Godina blocked Marlenis Costa's spike to end the marathon set 34-32. Russia survived five set points.

Backs to the wall

Their backs to the wall, Cuba went more and more to Ruiz. The slender 1.79 m attacker began finding the range on angled spikes from the corner and Ana Ivis Fernandez and Regla Torres dominated in the middle to haul Cuba back.

Russian passing became sloppy and their attack much more predictable, despite the screaming of coach Nikolai Karpol. A sub-par performance from all-round star Lioubov Chachkov also seemed to sap energy from the Russia challenge.

The Cubans became an impenetrable wall at the net, stuffing Russian spikes for points. The 103-minute gold medal match ended when Torres ripped a spike off a perfect feed from Costa.

Brazil repeated their bronze medal success of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics by humbling the United States in a powerful straight sets victory in the third place play-off.

Led by the superior outside hitting of Virna Dias, Leila Barros and 20-year-old Erika Coimbra, Brazil swept the United States 25-18 25-22 25-21.