Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 10, 2016 - The second Pool B match on Thursday in the men’s volleyball tournament at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games will be between the national teams of Russia and Egypt. Coming into this game from the two opposite ends of success in their Tuesday matches, the two sides will face each other with different kinds of emotions.
The Russians were upset with a 1-3 (18-25, 25-18, 18-25, 21-25) defeat by Argentina. Egor Kliuka was their best scorer with 16 points. With a 1-1 win-loss record, Russia are occupying the third place in the current pool standings.
The comments that came from the Russian camp indicated that the loss to Argentina was not so much due to some kind of an under-performance of their team, but rather to the very strong game of the opponents.
Meanwhile, Egypt already claimed their historic first Olympic victory – 3-0 (25-22, 25-15, 25-22) against Cuba – and are currently enjoying the fourth place in the standings, behind Russia only on set point ratio. Ahmed Abdelhay was the best scorer of the match, chipping in 20 points for his team’s success. The North African players have now certainly worked up some appetite for more victories in Rio, but whether the bleeding Russians are too big of a bite for them remains to be seen.
The most recent official match between Russia and Egypt was at the FIVB Volleyball World Cup 2015 in Japan. On September 18 in Toyama, the European standout secured a 3-0 (25-20, 26-24, 25-18) win against their African opponents.