China makes winning start against USA in women's volleyball

The Chinese women's volleyball team got its Olympic redemption off to a scintillating start by stunning reigning champions the United States in a five-set thriller to make a winning start to its pool stage campaign in Paris.

In a highly-anticipated duel between the gold medal winners from the last two Games, China's young star Li Yingying rose to the occasion by scoring critical points in the decider to help Team China hold off a strong surge by Team USA and claim a 3-2 opening victory.

The inspiring win marked Team China's first triumph over the US on the Olympic stage in 20 years, coming two decades after a win at the 2004 Athens Games, where China won the gold medal for the second time.

Arriving in Paris on the back of a disappointing early exit at the Tokyo 2020 Games, China's team, which won gold at the Rio Games in 2016, is on a mission to get back to winning ways in Paris, where it has been drawn in Group A, along with the US, Serbia and host France.

Opening the campaign with a strong win over the US has served as a major confidence boost, and restored the feel-good factor to a squad that had struggled in qualifying for Paris.

"To win a game this way today was really encouraging and we did it because we kept hanging there and we never gave up," said China's ace spiker Zhu Ting, who scored 17 points in the match.

Outside hitter Li led Team China's scoring with 26 points, and fired crucial consecutive points in the fifth set to seal China's win. Gong Xiangyu and team captain Yuan Xinyue contributed 13 and 12 points respectively.

Cheered on by a capacity crowd at the South Paris Arena, Team China started strongly by winning the first two sets in relatively comfortable fashion, yet fell victim to a resurgence by the US to draw level and take the match to a decider.

"We had a slow start," said Team USA top scorer Andrea Drews, who scored a game-high 29 points. "We know China can be a very dangerous team. They used all their weapons and we used all ours. I'm really proud of the way we fought back.

"We had a tremendous battle as we went on. We came up a few points short, but there's a lot of tournament left to be played and going five is always helpful in this format."

With an early advantage in the pool stage, Team China is on track to advance into the knockout stage by finishing in the top two places in the group. Additionally, the two best third-ranked teams across the three groups, each of four teams, will also advance to the quarterfinals.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn