Olympics: U.S. women look for volleyball gold in rematch with Brazil

London • Logan Tom played it coy this week.

A shot at Brazil for the Olympic gold medal and a measure of revenge for the U.S. women's volleyball team. Sweet right?

"I actually never really thought about that," said Tom, who grew up in Salt Lake City. "A gold is a gold, doesn't matter who we play."

But Brazil is the team the Americans are playing Saturday at Earls Court, which brings up a whole buffet of tasty subplots.

Brazil beat the U.S. in this same match in 2008 at the Beijing Olympics, and the teams are the top two in world rankings. However, the U.S. stole the top spot from Brazil at the end of 2011.

"Brazil's obviously an amazing team," Tom said.

However, the Brazilians showed themselves to be vulnerable in the quarterfinal round, nearly falling to Russia.

Head-to-head, things are a bit different from 2008. The U.S. has won six straight matches against the defending gold medalists, including a win in pool play of the Olympics in four games.

The U.S. seems to be at full strength. Captain and setter Lindsey Berg returned from an Achilles injury for the semifinal match against South Korea, and hitter Destinee Hooker has become an international sensation with her long, powerful arms and missile spikes.

The only issue for the U.S. is a decades-long bugaboo. Somehow, the U.S. has never won a gold medal at the Olympics in the nine summer games since the sport was introduced in 1964. Coach Hugh McCutcheon, a former BYU player and assistant coach, said the U.S. would not be distracted by the presence of history in the making.

"As far as everyone else's expectations," he said, "that's just noise. That's stuff that other people have issues with, it's certainly not our problem. ... The notion of pressure comes more from outside looking in."

And there will be plenty of people watching on Saturday.

boram@strib.com

Twitter: @oramb

Aug 10, 2012 | Categories: Olympic Volleyball, Olympics, olympics-highlights | Comments Off

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