Russia outlasted everyone to win the Global Cup volleyball tournament at the Huntsman World Senior Games

When the championship match of the Rotary Global Cup ended, Kozyreva Lubov, a towering, 6 foot, 2 inch Russian outside hitter, looked like she was going to cry.

She wasn't emotional, even though her team had outlasted Germany in a seesaw match to win the international Masters volleyball tournament held in conjunction with the Huntsman World Senior Games in St. George, Utah. No, she was just in pain.

Where does it hurt, Ms. Lubov? The one-time Olympic gold medal volleyball player pointed to her elbow. To her thigh. And then to her knee.

"Everybody hurts," said Irina Goldina, the only member of the Russian team confident enough with English to speak with a reporter.

"They're trying to kill us," said U.S. volleyball player Mary Jane Smith, with a smile on her face and a limp in her step. "Don't they know we're 50?"

After a day and a half of pool play followed by another day and a half of double elimination, the Russians, thanks to their winning the event, probably felt the best of the six teams in the inaugural Global Cup for women 50+. (The first Global Cup, which was held in 2006, was a men's 50+ tournament. The Huntsman World Senior Games plans to continue alternating men's and women's volleyball tournaments every other year).

The Russian squad fought for its victory. Winning was more like triumphing in an endurance race than a volleyball tournament. Russia, which featured two players (Lubov and Nadezda Radzevich) from the Soviet Union team that won the Olympic gold medal in 1980, suffered through a 24-hour trip from Moscow to New York City to Las Vegas and finally a shuttle ride to St. George. "There was everything: snow, rain, technical difficulties," said Goldina, who had an easier journey to St. George since she now lives in Los Alamitas, Calif.

On the tournament's final day Russia played seven games on its way to the gold medal. The U.S. squad and Team Brazil played eight games. Playing through the losers bracket Germany faced a difficult road. After reaching the championship by playing five games, the squad played five more in the final match for a total of 10 games in a single day.

Eventually, exhaustion took its toll on the Germans during the championship match, but for a while the squad seemed poised to snag the gold medal from the powerful Russian team. The teams were evenly matched, and precise and traditional bump-set-spike offenses characterized the play from both teams. Even at 50 and over, the hitters and blockers played above the net.

In the final match, which was played in front of a few hundred spectators at the Dixie High School gym in St. George, Russia scored the first point of the game on a soft set by Irina Salikhova and a powerful spike by Lubov. That combination produced a bevy of points for Russia, which won the first game, 25-21.

In game 2, Germany got off to a quick start, taking a 24-17 lead, but Russia stormed back to score 11 of the next 14 points to hold a 28-27 margin. That's when German outside hitter Silvia Laug took over the game.

After Laug's two kill shots gave Germany a 1-point edge, the winning point came on the strangest of plays. Digging out a rocket spike, a Russian player, reacting in self-defense, sent a bump up into the ductwork hanging from the gym ceiling. Miraculously, the ball snuck through the ducts and guy wires without touching anything and fell toward the German side, still in play.

Nonplussed, the Germans handled the shot easily. A bump and a set put Laug in perfect position to dink the ball over the Russian blockers for the game winner, evening the match at one game apiece.

In game 3, Germany again got off to a quick lead at 19-12. The team eventually hung on for a 26-24 victory, with Laug again supplying the game-winning point with a dink over the Russian blockers.

Trailing in the fourth game, 24-20, Germany made its last stand. The team scored 4 straight points to even the game. A block by Laug and Gudrun Behrens gave Germany a 26-25 lead and a match point. But Russia's Larisa Pogodina scored the next 2 points on spikes to give Russia a 1-point lead. Larisa Kharlamova served an ace as two German players watched the ball land on the court. Russia's 28-26 win evened the match at two games each, setting up a decisive fifth game.

The final game, which was played only to 15, was anticlimactic and riddled with missed bumps and sloppy setting by the German side. Lubov added powerful spikes when the Germans weren't handing over gift points. The final was 15-5.

"I think we were more physical," said Goldina, explaining Russia's gold medal.

German team member Marianne Lepa-Wachter, who played for West Germany in the 1972 Olympics in Munich, said, "We were too tired. We played too much today." But Lepa-Wachter, who played exclusively in the back row, didn't show her exhaustion, diving on the floor for digs until the end of the match.

Exhaustion also played a role in the third-place match, which pitted the United States against Brazil. The Brazilians wore borrowed uniforms that had the names of the players of the national team (not their own names) stitched on the back.

Earlier in the day, the U.S. squad, lacking a killer instinct, had frittered away two match points against the German team for the right to play the Russians in the finals. In the bronze medal match, the Americans again got off to a fast start, winning the first game against Brazil, 25-15, behind the strong play of Smith.

But the U.S. squad promptly let their opponents back into the match as the Brazilians, playing like their jerseys were inhabited by their original owners, won the second game, 25-14.

Jan Green, 54, a U.S. front line player, said that the difference in the second game was that she was playing out of position. "I play the middle," she said, "but they put me on the outside. I haven't set in years. I haven't played outside in years."

In the third game Green returned as a middle blocker, and the U.S. team again controlled the net. Green delivered three critical points early in the game and helped allow outside hitters to take over the game, which the U.S. won 25-11 to clinch the bronze medal.

Afterward, Brazilian outside hitter Juliane Sperandio uttered a familiar refrain when asked why the third game slipped away and so did the bronze medal. "We don't know," she said as teammate Christina Lajustica, 55, shed a few tears over the loss. "We are very tired."

But even the disappointed Brazilians said the tournament was a great experience. "It was wonderful," Sperandio said. "They treated us so well."

The Huntsman World Senior Games made it worth everyone's while to travel to St. George in the southwest corner of Utah. All six teams went to nearby Zion National Park and gathered together for a banquet back in St. George. "A lot of us got to know each other," said Denise Myhre of the Canadian team. "We had a lot of fun that night with the other teams trying out their English."

On their own, the athletes explored the local factory outlet mall and other stores. "They loved Kohl's," Goldina said of her Russian teammates. "They really liked Payless Shoes, because they had shoes in their size, 11 and 12."

A translator for the Chinese team, which placed sixth, said the women enjoyed St. George and the tournament, but they also suspected that they wouldn't be sent back after such a disappointing finish. "This team was only from Shanghai," said the translator. "Next time they'll probably bring a team with players from all across the country."

You heard it here first: Look out for the reconstituted Chinese team in the 2009 Global Cup.