China claims gold medal at FIVB Volleyball Women's U23 Worlds

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China claims gold medal at FIVB Volleyball Women's U23 Worlds

(Xinhua) 14:29, October 13, 2013

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China beat Dominican Republic 3-0 on Saturday in the inaugural FIVB Women's U23 World Championship, wining the gold medal at the Baja California High Performance Center in Tijuana, northwestern Mexico.

The set scores were 25-21, 25-20, 26-24 in favor of China.

The Chinese won the first two sets easily, however, Dominican Republic did not give up and battled back to earn a 24-24 draw in the third set. China's Liu Yanhan attacked and Gu Xinwei blocked Dominican Republic's attack to win the last two points to close the set at 26-24.

Liu Yanhan and Zhang Xiaoya each scored 17 points and topped the scoring charts of China with 17 points, while Brayelin Martinez and Jeoselyna Rodriguez finished with 14 and 13 points respectively for the Dominican side.

China won the intense battle for the gold medal relying on their blocking skills and overall ability, said China's captain Yao Di after the match, as statistics showed that China held an overwhelming advantage of 11-4 in the blocking category.

"We are very happy to win this world championship. We prepared a lot for this. All the three sets were really intense. We tried to do everything well in terms of preparation for blocking and defense, without missing any detail," she said.

Meahwhile, China's coach Xu Jiande highlighted Dominican Republic's performance in the final and considered the match is more difficult than what the scores showed.

"Dominican Republic is a great team and a very strong team. The match was of a very high level and it could go to either side. Tonight the luck is with us," he said.

In the other match earlier tonight, Japan captured the bronze medal with a 3-1 (25-16, 20-25, 25-11, 25-19) victory over the United States.

（Editor：HuangJin、Liang Jun）