Great Britain lost their third match in a row at the Olympics with a straight
sets defeat by Italy at Earls Court. Italy took the first set 25-19 and then fended off a determined challenge from the British to triumph 25-16 in the second.
The Italians then claimed the third set 25-20 for their second successive victory that lifts them up to third in Group A.
Great Britain are bottom without a win from their three games.
Italy player Michal Lasko said: “They made many mistakes. If you wait, they will make mistakes. With most of the other teams you have to push much harder.
“In the last set we tried something different and played some of the other players who hadn’t had much court time.”
Ben Pipes:
“We were living the dream out there tonight. That’s what it’s all about. Italy are one of the top teams in the world and we were competing well with them. We’ve come so far in a short space of time to get to this point. The atmosphere was great again, the fans have been really fantastic. We’ll keep pushing and holding up against these teams, trying to win points and waiting for the opportunity. We’ll keep pouring ourselves on the floor and doing everything we can. It’s disappointing when you don’t get the results you want, but when you have the support that we’ve had it’s easy for us to come out because the crowd support takes away any doubts and gives us the freedom to play.”
Dan Hunter:
“To come up against a team like Italy is great for us. It was a great experience so we had to enjoy it and play our best. We’ve got to celebrate that in just five years we’ve got to this level and we’re proud of that. We’re going to give everything. We wanted better results in the first two games, we didn’t get them and it was a tough day yesterday with the team, we had a big regroup, refresh. We looked each other in the eyes and said right, we’ve got to come out fighting as the British crowd are new to volleyball and we’ve got to show them that we want volleyball to stay in this country and to
play in this sort of arena day in, day out.”
Peter Bakare:
On Great Britain’s performances:
“I think we are doing the performances we want. I mean six years ago, we started from nothing. And here we are competing with the world’s best.”
On the next two matches:
“We always want to improve and get better and show that this country can play volleyball.”