If you can just side out and can receive the serve and put the ball away, you're going to equal that other team. It makes an average team a lot better because you don't have to earn your points. But the big thing _ I don't know any players that like it _ is rally scoring," in which a point is awarded after every rally, not just to the serving team. The court will be smaller _ each side 8 by 8 instead of 9 by 9. "We haven't competed since then we're itching to get out on that court." "They were ready to show how the Olympics had been a fluke," Blanton said.
Three weeks later Blanton and Fonoimoana played the Brazilians again. To represent your country, in my opinion, it's a gift." It's probably the biggest thing you can do, to perform in that kind of atmosphere at the highest level possible. "You can't improve upon that," Fonoimoana said. Once we snuck that set out, we just rolled from there," taking the second set 12-9 to win the gold. "Now the team with all the expectations was down a game and facing elimination," Blanton said, "and a team like us, not expected to do anything, was one away from winning the biggest event that exists for volleyball. I could lose all those other events but I knew this was the event I wanted to win." Knowing you can beat someone and doing it are two different things. "We knew we could beat them we just hadn't done it yet. They had lost four times to the Brazilians, but all were close. "I knew this was the event that mattered," Blanton said. Blanton and Fonoimoana were ranked 10th and hadn't placed higher than third in a tournament all season. 1 on the pro tour with five tournament titles in 2000. When they wound up in the gold-medal match, Brazil's Ze Marco de Melo and Ricardo Santos were prohibitive favorites, ranked No. They had never won an international event. They finished third.īlanton and Fonoimoana were the No. The pressure was in the Olympic qualifying.
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