Russia stormed back from match points down to defeat Poland and win the men's World Cup volleyball tournament on Sunday with Brazil taking the last ticket to the London Olympics next year. The Russians, who had already booked their Olympic place on Saturday along with Poland, were down 10-14 in the final set before scoring a 25-23, 23-25, 25-22, 17-25, 17-15 victory.
Two-time defending champions Brazil, ranked top in the world, wound up the two-week round robin competition by beating Japan 25-21, 25-19, 25-22 in the last match, and in doing so nabbed the third and last Olympics berth.
"I am the happiest person on earth today, because today is my birthday and my players gave me a wonderful gift," said Russian coach Vladimir Alekno.
"I also congratulate Poland for taking the ticket to the Olympic Games. It was the goal for each team."
Poland appeared satisfied as they won their first medal since winning silver in 1965.
"We are really glad that we qualified for the Olympics. We came here to qualify, but still we were fighting to end at the first place. They (Russia) were better than us," said defenceman Krzysztof Ignaczak.
Polish coach Andrea Anastasi said it was "an incredible tournament" after winning the silver medal against the best teams in the world.
"We took the second place, we are very happy, but we have to do another steps if we want to arrive at the top of the world," said Anastasi.
Brazilian coach Bernardo Rezende was also satisfied with the result: "The most important thing today was that we won 3-0 and qualified for the Olympics. We came to Japan to get the ticket to the Games, so we are very happy today." Captain of the Brazil team Gilberto Godoy Filho said: "I'm sad that we didn't win this championship, but the ticket to the Olympics was the objective, so I'm happy to accomplish that."
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