Rio 2016: More volleyball gold for China

The 2016 Olympic women’s volleyball tournament wrapped up on Saturday, and China has won the gold medal in a 3-1 victory over Serbia.

China’s legendary coach Lang Ping admitted that while her team probably wasn’t the most skilled or talented at the Games, they had the strongest will to win.

The United States won bronze earlier on Saturday after beating the Netherlands, a consolation for the world’s top-ranked team in their pursuit of an elusive gold.

“Our young players did not play well at the beginning, but they did at the important moment”.

Saturday’s victory gave China its third volleyball gold medal in Olympics history. But considering how they played early in pool play, resulting in their finishing fourth in their pool and drawing hosts Brazil in the quarterfinals, the gold medal is the end result of an impressive turnaround.

Serbia beat off an 8-point run by China and went down to an unstoppable spike by top Chinese scorer Zhu Ting.

“That’s what we want, of course”.

Yet patriotism and the desire to win rekindled by the volleyball team’s victory created extraordinary numbers.

Serbia is taking home a medal for the first time ever.

Ren said that in the 1980s a win was always linked to national pride, but these days charisma and individual performance are likewise valued, such as Lang Ping’s leadership and personal story. Lang Ping raised both arms in the air and Fangxu Yang sprinted over to embrace her.

China began its volleyball campaign at Rio with a disappointing loss to Netherlands in the first match.

“I am very happy for the young girls. You can beat them, but you can never break them”, said the presenter. “We just had to be patient”. They trained so hard.