The South Americans beat Türkiye to third place and got their second straight podium appearance
Published 05:08, 10 Aug 2024
Gabi led Brazil to a big win over Türkiye with 28 points
Brazil responded in a strong way to their only loss in the women’s volleyball tournament of the Paris 2024 Games, against the United States in the semifinals, and earned the right to step on the podium at the South Paris Arena 1 on Sunday’s medal ceremony with their third-place finish.
On Saturday, the South Americans faced Türkiye in the bronze medal match and dominated the Europeans to produce a 3-1 (25-21, 27-25, 22-25, 25-15) victory and end the tournament on a high.
With that, Brazil are set to make back-to-back Olympic podium appearances after taking silver at the Tokyo Games three years ago. It was the sixth medal won by the South Americans at the Games, with their collection now featuring two golds (Beijing 2008 and London 2012), one silver (Tokyo 2020) and three bronzes (Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Paris 2024).
"The hours after our semifinal loss were really difficult because our goal here was to win gold and we knew we were good enough to do it," captain Gabriela ‘Gabi’ Guimarães said."But already in the locker room, our coach did a great job of underlining how important it was that we came back home with the bronze medal. We needed to honor all the efforts we made during these last three years and I left the court very proud of how we handled it and achieved our goal."
Head coach José 'Zé Roberto' Guimarães won his fifth Olympic medal and his first bronze and was emotional after the match in Paris.
"I was emotional because of how important it was for us to win this medal," he commented. "It means a lot for us to make it to the podium. We did a lot of work over the last three years and in this last one, we tried our best to make sure everything we needed was going to be taken care of. Of course, we wanted to win gold, but I think we were really close to it. Winning bronze became a priority for us because it was going to be very sad if we went back home without a medal. Winning an Olympic medal is a big deal and I'm proud that we did it."
Türkiye are set to leave the French capital empty-handed but still have plenty of reason to celebrate as they just completed their most successful Olympic campaign to date, reaching the semifinals for the first time in their third attempt.
Brazil's Ana Carolina da Silva and Ana Cristina Souza try to stop Türkiye's Melissa Vargas
Brazilian captain Gabi led her team with an outstanding performance, which generated a match-high 28 points (22 kills, five blocks, one ace) for them. Star middle blocker Thaisa Menezes, with 17 points (eight kills, seven blocks, two aces), and outside hitter Ana Cristina Souza, with 13 (nine kills, three blocks, one ace), were other important scorers for the medalists.
"We're very happy to have won bronze," setter Roberta Ratzke commented. "Of course, our focus at the beginning was the gold medal, but after the semifinals, we had to change our plans. The bronze medal match is not an easy one to play because of the frustration of losing in the semifinals, but we came here ready to fight. We prepared well to face a very strong team. Türkiye have a powerful opposite (Melissa Vargas) and we knew we needed to find a way to limit her production to win."
Roberta Ratzke serves during the bronze medal match
Leading Türkiye’s scoring efforts again was opposite Melissa Vargas, who tallied 26 points (22 kills, three blocks, one ace). Outside hitter Derya Cebecioğlu and middle blocker Eda Erdem, with 14 and 13 points respectively, were also very active for the Europeans.
"Today we tried to fight against the best team in the world and in some moments we were able to play our best," head coach Daniele Santarelli remarked. "But the key moments of the match showed we're not ready for these matches yet. We had ups and downs during the match, but our lows were really bad as we made a lot of errors in a row. It was a good experience for us, but I think that the matches against the stronger teams really showed our limitations."
Thaisa, who scored the game-winning point against the Turkish, announced after the match that her second stint with the national team came to an end in Paris - she had returned to the national team in 2023 after retiring for the first time in 2018 and is set to leave the team at the age of 37 with three Olympic medals (gold in Beijing 2008 and London 2012 and bronze in Paris 2024).
"This is the end of a cycle for me," she revealed. "I'll focus on my club career now and there are several young girls with a lot of talent who deserve this opportunity and need to play. I hope that I got to leave a nice legacy and a positive mark on everyone I got to work with because I gave my best every day. I wish I could have done more to help us win gold here, but bronze means a lot. We gave all we had and I'm proud of how we reacted to the tough defeat we had. We were heartbroken, but we still managed to get together and fight for the medal."
MUITO OBRIGADO THAISA 🇧🇷
— Volleyball World (@volleyballworld) August 10, 2024
The 3x Olympic medalist from Brazil has announced that their Olympic bronze medal 🥉 match 🆚 Türkiye 🇹🇷 was her LAST MATCH with the national team.
The last time we would see her in Brazilian colors would be tomorrow at the awarding ceremony in… pic.twitter.com/4qcTQBr85d
With Brazil taking the last spot on the podium in Paris, Italy and the United States will now compete for gold in the last match of the tournament, set to take place on Sunday, at 13:00 local time (11:00 GMT), at the South Paris Arena 1.
