Bulgaria edges out Hosts GB in the opening match at the Olympics – Volleyball News
Great Britain (GB) men’s national volleyball team opened the 2012 Olympic Volleyball Tournament on Sunday and received a defeat in straight sets.
Visiting Bulgaria squad demonstrated a stellar performance and breezed past the hosts, 3-0 (25-18, 25-20, 26-24). Despite the advantage of familiar conditions and emotional support of fans, Team GB failed to prove its potential and lost the match at home
soil. Around 14, 000 spectators gathered at the Earls Court to catch the live action of volleyball.
Mark Plotyczer of home team emerged as the top-scorer of the match. He tallied match-high 16 points, which included 13 spikes and 3 blocks. Bulgaria was supported by Todor Skrimov and Vladimir Nikolov, who notched up 14 points apiece.
Equipped with stupendous support of local fans, the Britons paced things off in the first set. The GB Coach Harry Brokking used the best players in the starting line-up and gave them a great plan. Home team made a strong opening in the match, but lost the
rhythm midway through the set-1. Resilient rival Bulgaria went up on the scoreboard and pushed the hosts behind the attack line. Good combination of attack and defence allowed Bulgaria to secure first set of the match with seven points.
The second set had some sort of symmetry with the previous set. GB squad started out well, but gradually lost momentum. Bulgaria came from behind and took away the second set, which moved the guest team to 2-0 in the match.
Hosts jumped to an early lead of 13-8 in third set that created a bit of spark among the fans. Nevertheless, Bulgaria came from different angles and tried to dismantle the power of hosts. After an incredibly close competition, Bulgaria managed to put off
GB in third set and announced match victory.
The captain of British team Ben Pipes expressed his views after the match. He stated: “I do not think I was nervous at the start. Everyone was pumped. We got up at 5am and have done so for the last few days. We had a very light training session at 05:20
this morning, but you could open the door and it could be morning or midnight - we just adapted to it”.
Christopher Lamont of Team GB further explained the reason for failure. He stated: “We’ve only been together two to three months. We really suffer from very little funding. We only managed five friendlies and we need more experience at this level. Then we'll
be able to see sets out”.
Bulgaria’s Nikolay Nikolov was more than happy to celebrate his 26th birthday with a great win over home heroes of the British team.
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