Olympics beach volleyball results: August 18

Brazil’s Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt are Olympic champions after beating Italy in the gold medal match on Thursday at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The 2016 Rio Olympics men’s beach volleyball tournament came to an end on Thursday with the bronze and gold medal matches on a rainy Copacabana Beach.

Top-seeded Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt sent the crowd home happy with a sweep of Italy’s Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai in the gold medal match. Cerutti adds a gold to his silver from the London Games, while Schmidt won his first Olympic medal.

Italy initially stunned the crowd by opening a 6-2 lead to start the match, but the Brazilians stormed back to tie things at eight. Cerutti was a force at the net and Schmidt recorded six digs, as the hosts held off Italy 21-19 to take a lead.

Once again Italy built a 11-8 lead in the seond as Nicolai began to negate some of Cerutti’s influence at the net. Two straight blocks tied things at 11, and Cerutti proved to be too powerful to close out the gold medal match 21-17. The Brazilians totaled 14 digs to Italy’s five.

Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen of the Netherlands won the bronze medal match with a sweep over Russia’s Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Konstantin Semenov. The match was close throughout, as Brouwer and Meeuwsen escaped with a narrow 23-21, 22-20 victory.

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Neither side could gain much of an advantage either serving or at the net, as the difference was Russia’s 12 errors compared to eight for the Dutch. Brouwer and Meeuwsen dropped only one set prior to the semifinals and gave the gold medalists all they could handle before completing their strong tournament with the bronze.