Women’s Olympic volleyball pools set; USA men beat Brazil in five

The USA women are in a four-team pool with host France, China and Serbia at next month’s Paris Olympics. According to Volleyball World, which announced the three pools on Thursday, “The Olympic volleyball tournaments at Paris 2024 will be conducted under a new format, starting with three round-robin pools of four. “The pool winners, the […]

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The USA women are in a four-team pool with host France, China and Serbia at next month’s Paris Olympics.

According to Volleyball World, which announced the three pools on Thursday, “The Olympic volleyball tournaments at Paris 2024 will be conducted under a new format, starting with three round-robin pools of four.

“The pool winners, the pool runners-up and the two best ranked third-placed teams will advance to the quarterfinals for the start of the single elimination bracket that will lead to the semifinals and eventually to the medal matches to determine the Olympic podium.”

The USA women swept France — which got one of the 12 Olympic spots because it is the host country — 10 days ago in the third round of Volleyball Nations League. The Americans lost to China in four on May 16 in Rio de Janeiro, and have not played Serbia this summer.

The USA women play Italy on Friday in the VNL quarterfinals. Just last Friday in Fukuoka, Japan, Italy beat the Americans in four sets in VNL. In the other quarterfinal Friday in Bangkok, Thailand, Poland plays Türkiye.

In quarterfinals Thursday, Japan swept China and Brazil swept Thailand. They will play in Saturday’s semifinals.

The men’s Olympic draw wil be conducted June 26 at the VNL finals in Łódź, Poland.

USA men edge Brazil

The USA men kept their VNL finals hopes alive with a 25-21, 18-25, 25-21, 22-25, 15-9 victory over Brazil Thursday in Manila, Philippines.

The Americans — who need some help from other outcomes — finish the third round with must-win matches Friday against Germany and Saturday again Japan.

Against Brazil, TJ DeFalco led again. After getting 30 kills Wednesday in a five-set loss to Iran, DeFalco had 18 kills and three aces and had eight digs, tied with setter Micah Christenson. Max Holt had nine kills, five blocks, five digs and two aces, Matt Anderson had 11 kills and a block and Taylor Averill had 10 kills and a block.

Brazil’s Alan Souza had 23 kills, a block and two aces. Lukas Bergmann had 17 kills and two aces and Ricardo Lucarelli had 11 kills and two aces.

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