Japan’s eight gold at the 16th Asian Games Men’s Volleyball Tournament
With the help of a stellar performance in the final showdown of Men’s Volleyball Championship at the Asian Games, Japan overpowered Iran and clinched the gold medal. Japanese hotshots emerged as the gold medal winners by posting 3-1 (25-19, 25-13, 23-25,
and 25-18). The wonderful show of extreme volleyball was staged at the Zhongda Gymnasium, Guangzhou, China on Friday, 26th November, 2010. Around 10,000 spectators made their presence felt in the match. The 14-day men’s volleyball event successfully
completed its run from November 13-26 and revealed the final results yesterday evening.
Oddly enough, Japan reached at the verge of being knocked-out in the placement round but thanks to China, which enabled Japan to play in the semi-final. Japan defeated China in the knock-out quarter final and faced Korea in the semi-final. Korea proved to
be a resilient rival and gave a hard time to Japan. However, Japan managed to dismantle the power of North Korean squad in the semi-final and clinched the berth in final encounter with Iran. Moreover, the charged up Japanese team outplayed Iran and bagged
their 8th gold medal at the Asian Games Men’s Volleyball Tournament. Iran once again slipped the golden chance to hold the title trophy. Iran has never won the gold at this tournament but has managed two silver medals so far.
Match overview
Japan started out really well in the first set. They had a very good offensive attack and didn’t overlook the defence side either. The combination of better defensive and attacking capabilities gave a boom to their score in the first set. Kota Yamamura and
Takkaki Tomimatsu stood in the way of Iran like a concrete wall. They didn’t allow Iranian shots to pass over the net. In addition, Tatsuya Fukuzawa attacked with full might and devastated Iran’s defence line. Kunhirio Shimizu joined hands with his teammate
and added more fuel to Iran’s injury. Japan comfortably captured the first set by posting 25-19.
The second set of the match also brought success for Japan. They built an early lead of 12-10 and kept on throwing fire-balls in Iran’s half. Fukuzawa and Tomimatsu developed a great chemistry to raise Japan’s score to high stake. They extended their lead
to 21-11, while Iran struggled with a low score. The strong defence of Japan allowed Iran to score only 13 points in second set, while Japan closed the set with victory 25-13.
Iran put up a great fight in third set and picked up lead over Japan. The Iranian team finally started to feel alive and poised their feet in the court. They maintained the lead of 8-4 up till the first technical timeout. Japan hit back and tied the score
but Iran took lead once again. The score shifted up with narrow gap of points. Luck accompanied Iranian team and victory graced them in third set (25-23).
Japan returned in the game in fourth set and covered the deficit of third set, exhibiting better play by thrashing 25-18 victory on Iran in fourth set of the game. With the success in the fourth set, Japan was able to claim the gold medal victory at the
2010 Asian Games Men’s Volleyball Tournament.
Post match comments
Tatsuya Ueta, the head coach of victorious Japanese team was overjoyed with the big achievement of his team. He expressed his thoughts after the match, “We played very hard during the tournament. It is good that we won this one. This triumph is from all
the great efforts from all the players.”
The head coach of Iranian team, Madani Gharehlar congratulated the winning team and acknowledged that Iran couldn’t work out match-winning performance. He said, “We did not play well in the match. We should have played better but our performed at 50 percent.
We came here for the gold. I felt so sad and we were under very big pressure today.”
Tags: