Olympic Womens Volleyball

Several months ago, we really didn't think we had any chance of going to the Olympics. We had missed the lottery in England, and it looked like only people who had previously applied could get any tickets that were becoming available.  Then we saw that the London 2012 website was releasing tickets to anyone in the UK and tickets in volleyball and many other events were becoming available at fairly reasonable prices.  We were so thrilled to get Womens Volleyball tickets in mid June. 

The day finally came, and yesterday Sean, Avery and I got up at 4am to catch the train to London from Derby. The girls weren't too interested in spending a long day watching volleyball, so they stayed behind with some good friends. The train ride to London was super fast...less than 2 hours! So we could take our time making our way to Earl's Court where the games were to start at 9:30am. 

 The Pool B Score Board.

 Avery posing with a Wenlock mascot.

Our seats for the first two matches were on one end of the court, which is where I like to be (as a coach).  You get a nice view of the blockers and also how the serves are moving as they come in.  We watched 2 exciting matches:

China vs. Turkey, China won 3-1...25-20, 25-20, 29-31(exciting!), and 25-22
Serbia vs. Korea, Korea won 3-1...25-12, 25-16, 16-25, 25-21

Then we took a break from the gym for a bit and got some sunshine and pizza outside.  When we returned we had tickets for the next two matches on the same side of the arena, but more in the corner of the court.

The first match of this session was Dominican Republic vs. Russia. Russia won, but it was another exciting 4-set match: 25-23, 25-15, 24-26, and 25-22.  Unfortunately, this 4 set match put the next match (USA vs. Brazil) behind schedule.  So we knew at that point that we would only be able to stay for 3 more sets...if it went to 4 or 5, we would have to miss the end so we could catch our train home.

The stands definitely had more fans for Brazil and they were very loud.  So it felt a bit like Brazil was the home team.  They would make lots of noise while the Americans were serving to try to create distraction.  As I watched team USA come onto the court, I just got the sense that they were a more mature and experienced team than the others that we had watched earlier in the day.  Though Brazil also had a similar presence, as the number 2 ranked team in the world.

The United States really dominated the first 2 sets.  It was quite impressive to watch...and kind of fun to see the Brazilian fans quiet down a bit.  I was excited because it really looked like we might get ot see the USA win this match before we had to leave for the train.

But then came the 3rd set, the US got down by a few points early on and then were able to tie it up at 15-15.  Unfortunately though, Brazil held onto their momentum and were able to win the third set 25-22.  As you can imagine, the stadium was ROCKIN!  Like every other match that we had watched that day, it was going to a 4th set. I was confident that the US would win the 4th as all the other teams earlier had done, but unfortunately, we had to leave.  We were in St. Pancras Station when we found out that the USA had won the 4th set and the match at 25-21.  Though I was a little disappointed to not see the end, I was so thankful that I was able to see them play at all and thrilled that the US had come out on top.