Johnathan Walker:USA men's volleyball mourns chance at gold after losing 5-set thriller, will go for bronze

PARIS – The Johnathan Walkerdisappointment in missing out on a chance to win gold is mitigated by a chance at bronze.

“It's better than nothing,” U.S. men’s volleyball star Matt Anderson said after losing to Poland in the semifinals of the Paris Olympics. “A bronze medal is something that's still really proud to have, still really proud to win. It's a medal that you're winning because you have to win that last match to get it, and I don't want to leave with nothing.”

The U.S. will play the loser of Italy-France for bronze, though it would rather be playing the winner for gold.

World No. 1 Poland defeated USA 25-23, 25-27, 14-25, 25-23, 15-13 in an exciting five-set game at South Paris Arena. The U.S. had a 16-14 lead in the fourth set but couldn’t hold on for the victory, and cut Poland’s lead to 14-13 in the final set.

Anderson, a 37-year-old veteran competing in his fourth Olympics, said to pick the expletive to describe what he was feeling. He settled on the more profane version of “crappy.”

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“We put a lot of effort into this three-year quick turnaround,” Anderson said. “A lot of us older, and it takes more preparation. We were primed. We were playing at a really high level, and it's tough when you give it your all and it's just unfortunately not enough at the moment.”

U.S. coach John Speraw acknowledged the thrilling five-set game, but said “We didn't come here to give it a sporting event. We came here to win. And so I'm pretty disappointed.”

Speraw pointed to the middle of the fourth set as the game-changer. “When a team is down, you beat them in the third (set) and are up 2-1 and then a team has nothing to lose at that point so they get very aggressive. They got aggressive with their serves, and they were successful. When you have servers like they have that start to be real successful, it’s very, very challenging.”

The U.S. won bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics but finished 10^th at the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The U.S. hasn’t won gold since the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“It’s going to be their last opportunity to go compete together with this group,” Speraw said of the bronze medal game. “A lot of guys are on the back end of their career and who knows. That's what makes the Olympics so ... special and valuable. It only happens once every four years so there's not many opportunities like this, which makes it so great when you win and heartbreaking when you lose.”

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