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Four teams unbeaten in Olympic men's volleyball

Xinhua, August 10, 2016 Adjust font size:

Argentina, Italy, Poland and USA remained unbeaten after the second round of preliminary pool play in the men' s volleyball tournament of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games here on Tuesday.

Argentina beat defending champions Russia 3-1 (25-18, 18-25, 25-18, 25-21) in a Pool B match. It was the second victory of the South Americans over the powerhouse Russia in two months with the previous one a 3-0 result at the FIVB World League on June 26.

Argentina improved to a 2-0 win-loss record in the preliminary round while Russia fell to 1-1 with three more pool matches to play.

Bruno Lima led the Argentine scoring with 18 points and Facundo Conte and Pablo Crer added 16 and 11 respectively.

The smaller Argentineans outblocked Russia 11-7 with Crer and Sebastian Sole registering 5 and 3 blocks respectively. The winners also outserved their opponents 6-3.

"The key was the force of the team," said Argentina coach Julio Velasco. "We are proud and also humble especially because we have great teams ahead, especially Poland. The match puts us close to the quarterfinals."

Also in pool B, world champions Poland held off Iran 3-2 and Cuba lost to Egypt in straight sets.

World Cup silver medal winners Italy sent World Cup title holders the United States to their second straight loss at the Rio Games as they beat the Americans 3-1 (28-26, 20-25, 25-23, 25-23) in a Pool A match Tuesday afternoon.

Osmany Juantorena scored 20 points to lead the Italians to their second win in a row with Ivan Zaytsev and Filippo Lanza adding 15 and 11 points respectively.

"I am very glad that we win a hard match. It is an important victory for us," said Juantorena. "I know we play very well because USA are a strong team and we fight for the first and last point. We are happy but it's not finished. We still have to concentrate because we want to finish first or second in the group. This is now only history and we focus on Mexico in our next match."

USA's Aaron Russell had a match-high 22 points to lead four American players in double digits. Matt Anderson scored 14, while Taylor Sander and Maxwell Holt had 12 apeice.

In the other pool A action, France swept Mexico 3-0 and Brazil rallied past Canada 3-1.

Twelve teams are playing round robin preliminaries in two pools with top four finishers from each pool to qualify for the quarterfinals. Endit