Argentina ran over Brazil and claimed Gold medal in Pan American Games

After 20 years of suffering and lack of glory, Argentina finally made it: at the 2015 Panamerican Games held in Toronto, Canada, Julio Velasco and his players defeated Brazil in the gold medal match and gave Argentina its first title since 1995, when Weber, Milinkovic and Elgueta won the Panamerican Games in Mar del Plata.

It wasn’t an easy path for Argentina to the finals. Two victories against Cuba and Colombia followed a harsh straight-sets defeat against a ‘star-less’ Brazil in the round robin. As Murilo, Lucarelli and Bruno where playing the World League Finals in Rio, Leonaldo selected some rising stars (Renan Buiatti, Douglas Souza and Murilo Radke, among others) to retain the gold won in Guadalajara 2011.

Argentina outscored the university version of the United States with a 3-0 victory in Quarter-finals, with Facundo Conte starting to show why Skra Belchatow needs him so bad. In Semifinals, the rival to overcome was the landlord, Canada. Commended to Gavin Schmitt offensive power, the Canadians couldn’t do much against the great performance by Ezequiel Palacios and Jose Luis Gonzalez who lead Argentina to a 3-1 victory.

Brazil had no problems to smash Puerto Rico in the other semis to complete a 100% Southamerican gold medal match. Everybody expected a completely different match from the one in the first round, and god what a match they performed! Luciano De Cecco and Facundo Conte, afterwards chosen as the tournament best setter and MVP respectively, played a flawless first set and rend useless Renan’s huge scoring capability (25-23)

But Renan had another plans for the match. The Brazilian opposite’s left arm was unstoppable for the Argentinean defense and Leonaldo’s men won second and third set in a very comfy way (18-25, 19-25). Argentina was nearly dead when Velasco sent Luciano Zornetta and Martin Ramos to the field, and the Argentinean League stars did not let his coach down. Conte and Solé assured the side-out phase to tie the game in 23. Then, Ramos scored an ace and Zornetta stopped Renan with a huge block to force the tie break.

In a heart-stopping 5th set, Argentina found in Conte a way to solve all their problems. Hugo’s son emulated his father and led his team to a 15-8 victory to celebrate after 20 years of growth and volleyball development in Argentina. Cheers, champions!