Cuba Wins Women's Volleyball Gold

S Y D N E Y, Australia, Sept. 30 -- The Cuban women maintained their volleyball dominance with their greatest Olympic triumph.

Rallying from a two-game deficit, Cuba stormed back to win arecord third consecutive gold medal with a thrilling 25-27, 32-34,25-19, 25-18, 15-7 victory over Russia today.

Cuba now has won every major international competition since the1992 Games, building an amazing 35-3 record in world championshipsand Olympics.

The difference in ability and execution between the two teamswas minuscule, and they battled back and forth in a match befittingthe sport’s two superpowers.

Torres Prompts Comeback

Cuba had a 24-21 lead in the opener before letting it slip away.In the second game, Cuba led 24-23 but again failed to close. Bothteams fought for and lost four more game points until Russia pulledahead 33-32 on a kill by Elena Godina, who then closed it out bystuffing Marlenis Costa at the net.

Regla Torres, Cuba’s greatest player, brought her team back bygetting her 6-foot-3 frame into the path of the Russian players asoften as possible.

Torres, who became the youngest volleyball gold medalist whenshe played on the 1992 team at age 17, was fearless in the middle,attacking the 6-4 Godina and Russia’s other main scoring threat,6-3 Liobov Chachkova.

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Sweet Win for Coach Calderon

Cuba jumped to a 20-9 lead in the fourth game and withstood alate rally. In the deciding game, the Cubans took an 8-4 lead andkept hitting, as the young Russian team folded.

Torres got the final kill, a shot from the right side.

The victory was sweet for Cuban coach Luis Calderon. He hadreplaced Eugenio George, the national team coach for 15 years,after George left the program in a dispute with sports officials.

Fiery Russian coach Nikolai Karpol, meanwhile, fumed to the veryend.

Karpol, who led the Soviet Union to gold medals in 1980 and1988, had become the most-booed man among the crowds at SydneyEntertainment Center with his fist-shaking tirades against hisplayers. As the Cubans celebrated, he argued with officials over aprevious call.