Olympic Indoor Volleyball 2016: Men's Medal Winners, Scores and Results
The men's volleyball tournament at the 2016 Rio Olympics concluded Sunday, with the United States facing Russia in the bronze-medal game and Italy taking on host nation Brazil for the gold.
Below, we'll break down all of the day's action and medal winners.
Gold Medal: Brazil Beats Italy, 3-0
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| Italy | 22 | 26 | 24 |
| Brazil | 25 | 28 | 26 |
The Brazilians gave their countrymen and women another thrill on Sunday, earning the gold medal with a dominant straight-sets victory over Italy.
It was the country's third gold medal in the sport and their first since the 2004 Athens Games.
Wallace De Souza continued his epic Olympics, leading the Brazilians with 17 points off spikes. He added two blocks, but it was his point-scoring that was historically good, per the FIVB:
Bruno Mossa Rezende was the facilitator for many of those points, with 33 sets in the match.
Ivan Zaytsev led Italy with 15 spikes and three digs, while Emanuele Birarelli registered four blocks and Simone Giannelli posted 32 sets.
The win offered the Brazilians a bit of revenge, as they had lost to Italy in the preliminary rounds. The country had also come up just short of winning the gold in the past two Olympics, instead earning bronze in 2008 and 2012.
But Sunday in front of their home fans, they earned gold medals to wear over their distinct golden shirts.
Bronze Medal: United States Beats Russia, 3-2
| United States | 23 | 21 | 25 | 25 | 15 |
| Russian Federation | 25 | 25 | 19 | 19 | 13 |
The United States battled all the way back from a two-set deficit Sunday to earn the bronze medal in men's volleyball.
The game, in a sense, was a microcosm of the team's Olympics in general. The Americans lost their first two games of this tournament before rattling off four straight wins. Italy beat them for a second time in the semifinals, but the United States recovered to win the bronze against Russia.
Matthew Anderson led the way for the United States, winning 18 points on spikes (34.2 percent efficiency). Reid Priddy was efficient, meanwhile, winning 61.5 percent of his spike attempts for 17 points total.
After the contest, both the team's captain and coach had nothing but praise for Priddy, per the FIVB:
Anderson, David Lee and Maxwell Holt had two blocks apiece, while Erik Shoji led the team with nine digs. And Micah Christenson was the table-setter with 60 total sets.
In total, the United States held the advantage in spikes (72-52) and serves (8-5), while Russia had more blocks (12-8). Russia also committed more errors (32-21), a major factor in its blown lead.
But it was also a gutsy comeback on a day that didn't appear it would go the Americans' way before the match even began, as Tony Andracki of NBCOlympics.com reported:
"The Americans were just three points away from the gold medal match in the fourth set of the semifinal Friday, but Italy rattled off six straight points and then took the fifth set to send the U.S. to a devastating loss.
Russia, meanwhile, lost in three sets to host Brazil in the semifinal.
To add insult to injury, the U.S. team not only had to psychologically move past the heartache of missing out on gold, but then had a traveling snafu Sunday morning where their bus didn't have the right credentials and they were forced to walk several blocks to the Maracanazinho arena in the pouring rain in advance of the bronze medal match.
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Egor Kliuka led the way for Russia with 13 spikes, while Alexey Verbov and Sergey Tetyukhin notched seven digs apiece and Sergey Grankin finished with 45 sets. Russia coach Vladimir Alekno looked on the bright side after the loss.
"We didn't win a medal but we have a good team and a bright future," he said, per the FIVB.
All stats via Rio2016.com. You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.
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