The U.S. men’s volleyball team heads into the Olympics as a world championship medalist for the first time since the Atlanta Games, taking bronze at the quadrennial tournament that wrapped Sunday.
The Americans, after losing to eventual world champ Poland in the semifinals, came back to beat Serbia 23-25, 25-17, 32-30, 25-19 in the bronze-medal game, its first world medal since 1994.
The U.S. played Serbia 17 hours after its five-set semifinal loss that ended at 11:53 p.m. in Torino.
“It’s really hard to play bronze-medal matches; we unfortunately know that,” said U.S. coach John Speraw, referencing the Rio Olympics, where the U.