Germany upsets Cuba in opener

[sIsam]

In the first match of the women's vb tourney Germany upset F4 favorites Cuba coming from 2 sets down, despite missing starting opp Sylvester for most of the match.

Germany 3 Cuba 2 20-25 24-26 25-22 25-15 17-15

[sIsam]

For Germany Grun with 20, Furst and Kulakova with 15 each and Bouagaa and Thumm with 10 each. Ger with a total of 19 blocks - furst and kulakova with 6 each. A friend who watched says that was the difference.

For Cuba Carillo best scorer with 16

[sistahsledge]

On the nbcolympics.com v-ball results page, the Cuba/Germany is listed as "protested". Anyone know if there was some controversy? CNBC is supposed to broadcast the match in at 10:00 ET.

[FloridaPerson]

the bottom third during the softball game listed the volleyball match at 9:15 AM in the east. Might want to check it out early just in case.

[FloridaPerson]

and it's on right now, They've picked it up in game 3.

[foreignball]

sisam said:

Ger with a total of 19 blocks - furst and kulakova with 6 each. A friend who watched says that was the difference.

I would add some misserves and a few critical net violations

[The Bofa on the Sofa]

foreignball said:

I would add some misserves and a few critical net violations

And all around horrendous passing from Cuba (their setter took an awful lot from right over the net).

But Germany really put a lot of tough blocks on, especially in the 4th set. Fuerst was huge at the beginning of that one.

[Nutter]

So, for those of you who watched the match, what's the basis for the "protest"?

Any indication given at all?

[sIsam]

Athens 2004 site says the score is official. No note of protest. Nothing on Eurosport either.

www.athens2004.com/en/VolleyballWomen/results?rsc=VOW400B00

Nothing like that mentioned on press conf either. I will post if I do hear anything.

[brybry]

That was a very exciting comeback. I'm glad we got to see Tanja Hart again. Hate to say this, but she looked a lot better than Ah Moh at this point in the tourney. She wasn't always given the best passes but she always did great things w/ them. The German coach (a Korean guy of course) seems like he knows what he's doing too. The US better bring their A game.
Cuba looked really out of wack. The big surprise was how much their star Ruiz was struggling. She got blocked over and over and over again. Passing and setting was worse that usual for Cuba.
Nice job by Germany. BTW, Germany is surprisingly ethnic. I was expecting a blonde Arian team like something the Netherlands usually field.

[sIsam]

brybry said:

That was a very exciting comeback. I'm glad we got to see Tanja Hart again. Hate to say this, but she looked a lot better than Ah Moh at this point in the tourney. She wasn't always given the best passes but she always did great things w/ them.

Hart is a very good setter but just recently finding a chance to show herself now that Germany is getting better and better.

Running the risk of offending some here, I will still go ahead and say that there're at least 4-5 setters in Europe who are at least as good as Ah-Mow. Hart is one of them.

The German coach (a Korean guy of course) seems like he knows what he's doing too. The US better bring their A game.

Though sometimes contrvertial with player selections, he has always been an excellent tactician and quite a few times won them a match by some unexpected change of tactics/ players. Also installed a self discipline on this team that they never quit. This is not the first five setter they won coming back from two sets down and probably won't be the last. When you play Germany, the match is not over until you're shaking hands....

Said this before will say it again. Germany is the key team in this group. They can upset any team in this group but I am not sure they will find the consistency to beat them all. Any team with hopes of qualifying from this group will need to go thru Germany first....

Nice job by Germany. BTW, Germany is surprisingly ethnic. I was expecting a blonde Arian team like something the Netherlands usually field.

Well they have not been like that for quite a long time... Even more diverse than they look. Bouagaa has Tunisian parents, Radzuweit´s father is cuban, Grun was born in Tajikistan and one of her parents is from there I belive and Kulakova is a naturalized Kazakh.