TOKYO, 17 May 2004 — Asian silver medalists South Korea outgunned Puerto Rico yesterday to finish second to Japan in the women’s volleyball final qualifying tournament for the Athens Olympics.
South Korea secured a place in the Olympics on Saturday, based on its win-loss record, along with Japan, Italy and Sydney Olympic silver medalists Russia.
Japan took the top place in the tournament on Saturday by beating Taiwan for a 6-0 win-loss record.
On Sunday the Korean women, whose only loss in the tournament was against Japan on Friday, rallied to a comfortable 25-19, 25-15, 25-15 win to finish the eight-nation round robin with a 6-1 win-loss record.
Thailand crashed to a 25-16, 25-14, 25-14 defeat to world champions Italy to settle at fifth place with a 3-4 record, while Taiwan posted their first win, beating Nigeria 25-18, 25-23, 25-21 for seventh place.
Korean spiker Choi Kwang-hee said: “The most impressive game was the one when we came back from match points down at 11-14 in the final set to beat Italy.”
Kim shrugged off the defeat to Japan saying his players had been tired as they had to play their Asian archrivals soon after South Korea scored exciting five-set wins over Russia and Italy.
Thai captain Patcharee Sangmuang admitted that her side was far behind the teams who qualified for the Olympics.
“Even though our chances to go to Athens ended yesterday, we played with the same intention to do our best as before, but we were tired and the movement of our team was very slow. That’s why we couldn’t play well,” said Patcharee.
“We are still far from the four teams that reached Athens. We have a lot of things to improve further, both defense and offense. We’ll do our best in our next tournament.”
Italy ended with a 5-2 record after losing to South Korea and Japan.
