The Europeans took gold in Paris with six wins and just one set dropped
Captain Anna Danesi and Caterina Bosetti celebrate a point during the gold medal match
Italy joined the restricted and prestigious group of Olympic champions in women’s volleyball on Sunday, when they triumphed at the Paris 2024 Games, bringing an amazing end to 16 days of elite displays and incredible atmospheres at the South Paris Arena 1.
The number one team in the FIVB World Ranking, the Italians kept the excellent form they showed during the entire tournament to take down Tokyo 2020 champions the United States 3-0 (25-18, 25-20, 25-17) in the tournament’s final.
With their victory in Paris, Italy are now the seventh nation to hold Olympic gold medals among the women, joining the former USSR (four), China (three), Cuba (three), Brazil (two), Japan (two) and the United States (one).
The gold won in Paris was also the first-ever Olympic medal for Italian women in volleyball – they needed seven attempts to do it and made it to the medal rounds for the first time in the French capital. Libero Monica De Gennaro was with the team in their last four campaigns and celebrated the biggest moment in Italian volleyball to date.
“This is really special,” she said. “It was the dream of all of us players to play in a final and to get to win it, it’s really something unique. We’ve worked hard for so many years to make it to this final and to get to play it and win it, it’s really amazing. During my career, I’ve worked every day with the goal of getting better and this is a great reward for all the hard work we made.”
The Italians were impeccable during the 16 days of competition in Paris and claimed the title with an undefeated campaign of six victories and just one set dropped.
For the USA, getting silver meant making a fifth-straight podium appearance after taking silver in Beijing 2008 and London 2012, bronze in Rio 2016 and gold in Tokyo 2020. Their roster in Paris contained nine Tokyo Olympic champions, including outside hitter Jordan Larson, who was present in the team’s last four Olympic campaigns.
An extraordinary performance of Paola Egonu paved the way for the Italian triumph
Star opposite Paola Egonu played her role perfectly in the gold medal match, leading the Italian offense with 22 points. Outside hitters Myriam Sylla and Caterina Bosetti also had solid scoring displays, tallying ten and nine points respectively.
The Americans made several substitutions during the match to try and find the best way to stop Italy and had in opposite Jordan Thompson, who came off the bench, their most productive player, with eight points. Outside hitter Avery Skinner added another seven.
The Italians were more effective than the Americans in every scoring skill, beating their opponents in kills (45 to 35), blocks (11 to zero) and aces (seven to three), which made their higher numbers of errors (17 to 12) don’t have much of an impact in the match.
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