Our Olympic dreams in tatters

Jun 10, 2012 |

Kochi

Tags:

volleyball

The Indian Olympic qualifier campaign has come to an abrupt end as India that have three Keralites in the team lost two straight games against Germany and Czech Republic in the qualifiers held at Berlin.

World No. 23 Czech Republic ended India’s Olympic hopes in Volleyball by defeating India in straight sets (25-19, 25-13, 25-23) on the second day of the FIVB Men’s World Qualification Tournament held at the Max-Schmeling hall in Berlin, Germany on Saturday.

Jan Stokr (22 points) and Karel Linz (18 points) spearheaded the Czech campaign while for India Sube Singh led the scorers (8 pts) followed by Sanjay Kumar and captain Gurinder Singh (7 pts).

The Czechs lost their opening match to Cuba on Friday, while the Indians were defeated by Germany the same day.

Indian team overcame the early Czech advantage by pulling out a score of 8-9 but the European team had the last laugh in the first set as they bettered India by better defense and strong attacks.

In the second set, Stokr played a brilliant game to lead his team to victory 25-13 rather easily with his blistering volleys.

India tried for a comeback in the third set as it led the set once 11-12 but Czech simply retook the lead back only to win the game and match.

This is the second victory for the Czechs in two matches against India after they beat them 3-0 in their only previous encounter at the 1952 World Champs.

Earlier, host Germany, which are ranked 13, trounced India 3-0 (25-16, 25-19, 25-15) in the first qualifiers. Ranked 30th in the World, India were not able to defend the strong services and attacks from both flanks effectively against an experienced German team.

Germany ace attacker Jochen Schöps top scored making 16 points, while Indian captain Gurinder Singh performed his best to top score on Indian side with 10 points.

Indian spikers showed their prowess in the second set, almost equaling at a point (7-6) but lost the set after showing a good performance 25-19. Germans with a better physique was able to defeat India rather easily in the third set.

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