U.S. claims bronze in water polo
Advertiser News Services
ATHENS, Greece Turns out the U.S. women's water polo players can be happy with bronze, especially considering they came close to leaving the Olympics with nothing.
The Americans had to gut out a 6-5 victory over Australia after squandering a four-goal lead yesterday. In the gold-medal game, Italy prevailed, 10-9, over Greece in a game that went six periods.
The top-ranked Americans expected to be playing for gold, until Italy upset them, 6-5, in the semifinals Tuesday. They were lucky to escape with bronze after falling apart against Australia after building a 5-1 lead.
Australia rolled off four unanswered goals to tie the game early in the fourth period. It took a player-advantage goal by Ellen Estes, who scored three goals in the game, and a tense two-plus minutes of defense to bail the Americans out of a second straight disaster.
"I guess we like a little drama," U.S. attacker Heather Petri said. "It slipped away for a little while. At least no one panicked. We just had to work harder to pull it together. But just once, I'd like to play a game free of drama."
The U.S. players were laughing and smiling yesterday, a sharp contrast to the tears and disappointment that followed their semifinal loss. It seems almost losing a second time put their situation in perspective.
The players huddled together in a circle before the match to remind each other one last time that they were playing for something. And not just pride. They had a bronze medal at stake.
"We talked about going all out in the pool," Brenda Villa said. "This was our last game together. We needed a happy memory."
Two days ago, most players spoke and reacted as if they had lost everything at these Olympics.
In 2000, they fell short of the gold medal by a goal, to Australia, no less.
Thus began a four-year campaign designed to move up one spot. Winning at last year's world championships convinced the Americans they had arrived.
The fall Tuesday was a hard slap back to reality.
"We trained so hard for so long to be in the gold medal game. And we just wanted a medal after this," said U.S. goalkeeper Jackie Frank, sobbing as she left the pool.
Knight Ridder News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this report.