Echoes of China’s patriotic past in surprise volleyball win in Rio
Huge Chinese TV audience watch as women’s team defeats Serbia after barely scraping into finals
After two disappointing weeks for China at the Rio Olympics, the national women’s volleyball squad restored pride with a surprise 3-1 victory over Serbia in the final.
The widely watched victory at the packed Maracanazinho Arena returned China to the top podium spot after a 12-year drought and revived talk of a “patriotic women’s volleyball spirit” that first emerged more than three decades ago.
The win also made coach Lang Ping the first person to win Olympic gold as both a player and a coach.
WATCH: golden moments on Day 15 at the Rio Olympics
China finished fourth in the group stage and barely made it through to the quarter-finals. But they mounted an impressive comeback to defeat every opponent in the play-offs, including host Brazil, and two rivals they lost to in the group stage, the Netherlands and Serbia.
The gold medals are the results of the contribution of all the players and I thank them for that
Lang, the ace spiker in China’s 1984 gold medal team, said the squad had taken the last four years one day at a time. “We have been designing and executing our training every single day. We took one step at a time and we finally got so far here today. The gold medals are the results of the contribution of all the players and I thank them for that,” Lang said.