History has been made: Anna Danesi and her teammates have won the gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games – beating the United States 3-0 (25-18, 25-20, 25-17), a feat never achieved before by any Italian volleyball team (for the women’s national team this is the seventh participation in the Games); for CT Velasco, therefore, after the silver in Atlanta 1996 with the men, comes the medal that was still missing in his trophy cabinet and in that of the Italian Volleyball Federation.
THE MATCH SCORESHEET
A historic feat, therefore, for a wonderful group of athletes capable of winning the Volleyball Nations League and the Olympics in the same year, the worthy culmination of a long journey of maturation that began a few years ago. The past, however, is now behind us and as the CT has repeated like a mantra in this period: “here and now” and this has turned into a more than deserved gold medal.
Velasco fielded the usual lineup with the Orro-Egonu diagonal, Bosetti and Sylla as spikers, Fahr and Danesi in the center with De Gennaro libero.
Kiraly chose Poulter as setter, Drews as his crosscourt hitter, Plummer and Skinner as spikers, Washington and Ogbogu as middle blockers with Wong-Orantes as libero.
First set in which Danesi and her teammates immediately imposed their rhythm, managing to accumulate an important advantage of eight lengths (15-7), then managed by the Italians up to 25-18 which was worth 1-0. During the partial (17-12), the CT made the usual double change Cambi-Antropova for Orro-Egonu which guaranteed continuity of performance. Overall good performance by all the Italians, good at receiving (41%) and blocking (4 in the partial).
In the second set the teams remained in contact at the start (8-8), but as the minutes passed the Italians once again managed an advantage that oscillated between +3 and +6 (22-18), a situation that allowed them to reach 24-19; the first set point was cancelled, but it was Egonu who closed on 25-20 and brought Italy to 2-0. Once again the performance of all the Italians called into play was notable with Bosetti author of 4 points with 100% in attack; Fahr also did very well, always in attack, closing with 80% and 5 points, but probably talking about individuals would be unfair towards a collective that made the difference from the first to the last minute of the match.
Third fraction with the Italians still consistently ahead and able to dominate the scene until the 25-17 that crowned them Olympic champions.