USA's Coach Karch Kiraly has a simple philosophy for Olympic success
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 14, 2016 – Three-time Olympic gold medallist Karch Kiraly said the secret of success at the Olympic Games is not trying to be better than good, but to keep just being good game after game.
Karch Kiraly, Coach of United States: Coming up to the Olympic Games I said our group presented a lot of challenges from the start against Puerto Rico. I think each team is better and four of them are going into the quarterfinals. Going out undefeated gives us a great feeling but nothing more than that. Maybe we are going to face a team that didn’t do that well in the other group.
On today's match against China
China came out playing very good volleyball. They really pushed us in the first set and we had too many service mistakes. I have to give a lot of credit to our captain Christa Dietzen and Kelsey Robinson for coming in and giving us a lift off the bench. Jordan Larson played a phenomenal match.
On Setter Alicia Glass
She has been fantastic and this has been her team in a lot of ways. She helped us to a world championship a couple of years ago and to a bronze medal at the World Cup. She really helps the team in a lot of ways. She is one of the smartest players I have ever seen with a high IQ. Besides being a good setter she is a strong player with great blocking ability.
On his Olympic success and experience:
When you come to the Olympics you try to be better than good and things get complicated. You just have to be good and play good game after game.
Lang Ping, Coach of China: Congratulations to USA for finishing first in Pool B. They are a very strong team. We did well and learned a lot of things from this match. Our young players were resilient and battled hard but we still have some weaknesses and we failed in our reception with many miscues in the fourth set. We can learn good lessons from this match.
Christa Harmotto-Dietzen, Captain of United States: We had a chance to come back in this match and the team responded well as we have done before in the tournament battling through adversity in our pool and we will continue doing that. China is a great team and when we check the video of the match we will se where we can get better. Today it was a team-effort.
Jordan Larson, Player of USA: I thought we did a nice job, but China’s a strong team. We’re excited to come out of the pool on top and we are excited to be in the quarterfinals, and see who we match-up against. It’s been great. I am not doing anything special I am just being me and cherishing every point. I love this team and for what it stands for, and we’re all fighting together. We can’t do it alone, so we have to be together in all the performances that we’ve had.
Kelsey Robinson, Player of USA: China played really hard tonight and we did a really great job in the first set up to the last set - upgrading our passing – which allowed us to be in system. I am just proud of the fight that we did tonight. I am just trying to do to make us win and I am just honoured to be part of this team.
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