USA stop Brazil and return to Olympic gold medal match at Paris 2024

The United States performed as the reigning Olympic champions they are and downed Brazil, who were yet to drop a set in the women's tournament of the Paris 2024 Games, in the semifinals on Friday at the South Paris Arena 1 to get just one win away from winning back-to-back gold medals.

After many turnarounds and moments of dominance for both sides in the first four sets, the Americans came back stronger in the tie-breaker and produced a dramatic 3-2 (25-23, 18-25, 25-15, 23-25, 15-11) victory in a rematch of the gold medal match of the Tokyo Olympics.

The Americans now wait for the second semifinal, between Italy and Türkiye, later on Thursday, at 20:00 local time (18:00 GMT), to know their opponents in the gold medal match, which is scheduled for Sunday, at 13:00 local time (11:00 GMT). The Brazilians will play the losers of that match for bronze on Saturday, at 17:15 local time (15:15 GMT).

Paris 2024 – Match Schedule and Results

The USA will play in an Olympic final for the fifth time, having won gold in Tokyo three years ago and settled for silver in Los Angeles 1984, Beijing 2008 and London 2012, falling to Brazil on the last two occasions. They also have two bronzes (Barcelona 1992 and Rio 2016) and are guaranteed a medal for the fifth straight time at the Games.

The Americans could also become the fourth women's national team to successfully defend an Olympic title - the former USSR won in Mexico City 1968 and Munich 1972, Cuba triumphed on three straight in Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000, while Brazil won back-to-back golds in Beijing 2008 and London 2012. Nine members of the team that took gold in Tokyo are part of the squad that's representing the country in Paris.

"If you're just watching, you'll see a lot of the same players, but it's totally different," opposite Annie Drews reacted. "We're relying on different people and some people have new roles, but I think that what stayed really true is that anyone is ready for any role on any night, that's kind of our weapon. We have full trust in anyone we put out there. And if you come off the court for a few minutes, just screw your head back on and get back up there."

To beat the Brazilians, however, the Americans heavily relied on their 25-year-old rookie outside hitters as Kathryn Plummer, with 26 points (23 kills, two blocks, one ace), and Avery Skinner, with 19 (15 kills, three blocks, one ace), were the team's leading scorers. Drews also had a great performance, with 18 points (17 kills, one ace).

"I'm still a little bit in disbelief," Plummer commented. "There's a lot of joy that we're going for our dream of trying to get another gold medal. To be on the podium at the Olympics is why we all play volleyball and to know that I'll have a medal, it's a really amazing feeling. I think we're all getting more and more comfortable now that we've been using the same lineup after switching it a lot during the Volleyball Nations League. We were still trying to find our identity coming into this tournament."

Head coach Karck Kiraly had words of praise for his young outside hitters.

"It's really fun to see two outside hitters who haven't played that much at this level take this game by the throat," he reflected. "The other team can have everything right, but they hit so hard that the ball is still going down. They're giving us some fantastic firepower. Every time we pushed Brazil hard they pushed us back and finally we came out a little bit on top. It was an incredible team effort."

Brazil, who have six Tokyo medalists back in Paris, had one of them, outside hitter Ana Cristina Souza, as their leading scorer in the semifinal, tallying 24 points (22 kills, two blocks). Outside hitter Gabriela 'Gabi' Guimarães and opposite Rosamaria Montibeller had ups and downs during the match and left the court with 16 (15 kills, one block) and 14 points (12 kills, two blocks), respectively.

"It's a mix of feelings right now," Ana Cristina commented. "I'm obviously very sad to not be in the final, but also grateful to be here at the Olympics again. I felt that we let them have some runs at times and maybe we didn't play at our usual level, but in general, I'm very proud of the team because we fought until the end and we believed until the last ball went down. Unfortunately we didn't make it, but that's sports. We'll cry all we have to cry tonight and tomorrow we start preparing for the bronze medal match. Bringing a medal back to our country is incredibly important and we really deserve it. We deserved gold, which we're not going to get, but we'll go for bronze."

In the end, the American offensive efficiency proved to be the difference as the six-point edge in that skill (67 to 61) was huge for them to take the win as they also did better in aces (five to two), while the Brazilians got more blocks (15 to 13) - each team got 21 points from opponent errors.

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