Beijing Olympic Games

Updated: 2008-08-21 22:39:03

(BEIJING, August 11) – The two powerhouse countries of Men’s Beach Volleyball will clash in the gold medal match tomorrow when the United States’ Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers play Brazil’s Marcio Araujo and Fabio Magalhaes.

In the semifinal on August 21, Araujo and Magalhaes upset their compatriots, Athens 2004 gold medalists Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos.

Dalhausser and Rogers’ appearance in tomorrow’s final marks a return to medal contention for the United States in Men’s Beach Volleyball. Teams from the United States won gold medals at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000, but did not win any medals at Athens 2004.

The US pair’s Olympic campaign has not gone completely smoothly. Dalhausser and Rogers lost their first match against Martins Plavins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs of Latvia, but they quickly recovered and won all their other matches.

In fact, one could be forgiven for thinking that the American pair lost their first match on purpose because the loss actually put them in a weaker bracket of the elimination round.

“It was a blessing in disguise. It put us in a weaker bracket and we would have been in a much tougher bracket (if we had beaten Latvia), with three top-seeded teams. It worked out for us,” said Dalhausser after he and Rogers won their semifinal against Renato Gomes and Jorge Terceiro of Georgia.

Araujo and Magalhaes were ecstatic after defeating Rego and Santos in the semifinal: “When you play them (Santos and Rego) you have to play at 100 per cent, to beat them you have to play at 101 per cent, and I think we played about 120 per cent today,” said Araujo after his and Magalhaes’ semifinal victory.

The two finalists have played each other a total of seven times, with Araujo and Magalhaes winning five matches. However, the teams have only met once in 2008, with Dalhausser and Rogers winning in straight sets at the Moscow Grand Slam.

Gomes and Terceiro will take on Rego and Santos in the bronze medal match that precedes the final. Although Gomes and Terceiro are playing for Georgia, both players were born in Brazil, which is the true powerhouse of the men’s game.

If Dalhausser and Rogers win tomorrow, then both gold medals in the men’s and women’s competitions will go to the United States because Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh defeated Tian Jia and Wang Jie of China in the women’s final today.

Men’s bronze medal match: Renato Gomes and Jorge Terceiro (Georgia) vs Ricardo Santos and Emanuel Rego (Brazil), 9 a.m. local time (UTC/GMT

Men’s gold medal match: Philip Dalhausser and Todd Rogers (the United States) vs Fabio Magalhaes and Marcio Araujo (Brazil), 11 a.m. local time (UTC/GMT