
PARIS — Spain celebrated its first gold medal in ladies’s water polo on the Olympics on Saturday by defeating Australia 11-9, erasing defeats within the finals of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and London 2012 Olympic Video games.
Micah Godoy put Spain forward 11-7 with a objective late within the fourth quarter, and though Australia pulled inside two factors, Australia ran out of time.
The third time proved Spain’s attraction, with a 14-5 defeat in Tokyo three years in the past and an 8-5 loss to the USA in London greater than a decade later.
Australia was the inaugural champion on the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Though it missed out on its first gold medal in 24 years, it received its first medal for the reason that bronze medal on the London Olympics.
This time, nevertheless, Staff USA didn’t win a medal. Staff USA has by no means been omitted of the rostrum in ladies’s water polo.
Within the bronze medal sport, Sabrina van der Sloot scored with lower than a second left to assist the Netherlands beat the USA 11-10.
Her game-winning objective sparked an unimaginable comeback for the Netherlands, who trailed 9-6 within the last interval however scored 5 straight objectives to beat the three-time champions.
Within the 2008 Beijing last, the Netherlands defeated the USA 9-8 to win the gold medal, their first medal in 16 years.
“I am type of shocked,” U.S. attacker Maddie Musselman stated.
“It simply goes to indicate how essential it’s to remain within the second and we did not take full benefit of that right this moment.”
U.S. head coach Adam Krikorian stated he was “unhappy” for his crew however extraordinarily pleased with his gamers.
“They gave it their all right this moment. They did all the pieces they may,” he stated, including that the opponent “was clearly the higher crew right this moment … and that is going to harm for some time.”
Van der Sloot, 33, scored six objectives on seven pictures and scored twice within the last interval to steer the Netherlands to victory.
With the rating locked at 10-10, the Dutch referred to as a timeout with 8 seconds remaining after profitable a turnover.
When play resumed, Vandersloot took possession of the ball, confronted a crowded U.S. objective, and launched a rocket that leapt out of the water and beat U.S. goalkeeper Ashley Johnson simply inside the fitting publish.
With 0.7 seconds left within the sport, the American crew had one final shot, however Johnson’s lengthy shot was simply blocked in entrance of the cage.
——Reuters, particularly for reside media