ATHENS, Greece – The United States shocked a sold out crowd, of over 10,000, at the Greek Olympic Swimming Stadium by defeating host country Greece, 8-5, to capture the gold medal at the X FINA World Cup. <\/p>\n
The victory capped an improbable run which started with a 10-7 win over Spain, the defending Olympic gold medalists. The United States then knocked off Italy, the 1996 Olympic bronze medalists 7-6, and then defeated Greece in a shoot-out to complete round robin play. <\/p>\n
In the semi-finals, the United States eliminated a powerful Russian team in overtime, 9-8, to set up a rematch with Greece, which had crushed Hungary 8-4, in the other semi-final. <\/p>\n
The hometown, standing room-only crowd loudly booed the United States during the introductions, saving their biggest boos for American superstar Chris Humbert, who plays professionally in Greece. Humbert responded with a goal in the first 35 seconds of the game and two more in the first period as the United States unrattled Greek goalie, Gerasimus Voltyrakis, for a 3-0 first quarter lead. When Brad Schumacher, a 1996 Double Olympic Gold medalist in swimming, scored two minutes into the third quarter, for a 5-0 USA lead, the crowd was momentarily silenced. At this point the Greeks made a comeback to close the USA lead to 6-4, but goals by Jeremy Laster and another by Schumacher sealed the victory. <\/p>\n
Chris Humbert scored a total of 15 goals in the tournament and was named tournament MVP. For their victory, each American player will receive $5,000 from the USOC. <\/p>\n
This victory marks a spectacular coaching debut for USA head coach John Vargas, who took over for Rich Corso (the 1996 Olympic head coach). The win for the United States ended a 6-year drought in major international competitions. (ie. Olympics, World Championships, World Cup).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATHENS, Greece – The United States shocked a sold out crowd, of over 10,000, at the Greek Olympic Swimming Stadium by defeating host country Greece, 8-5, to capture the gold<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[707,76,477,410,552,811,178,141,584,476,479,810,809,102,411,531,142,62,68,276],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz","tag-athens","tag-brad-schumacher","tag-chris-humbert","tag-goalie","tag-greece","tag-greek-olympic-swimming-stadium","tag-head-coach","tag-hungary","tag-italy","tag-jeremy-laster","tag-john-vargas","tag-location","tag-olympic-head-coach","tag-olympics","tag-player","tag-spain","tag-swimming","tag-united-states","tag-usd","tag-world-cup"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n