WOMEN'S WATER POLO Greece pushes Italy to the limit, but loses
XATHENS, Greece -- When Italian coach Pierluigi Formiconi said he'd remember the last-ditch semifinal win over the United States as the real gold-medal match at the Olympics, he pretty much wrote off the Greeks.
Greece made him rue his words until deep into overtime Thursday, when Melania Grego's lob goal gave Italy a 10-9 victory and the women's water polo gold. The world champion United States won the bronze medal 6-5 over Sydney 2000 champion Australia.
Ellen Estes scored three goals, including the tiebreaker in the final period, to take the bronze after Australia rallied from a four-goal deficit.
The Australians had edged the United States for gold four years ago.
"We trained so hard for so long to be in the gold medal game. And we just wanted a medal after this," said U.S. goalkeeper Jackie Frank, sobbing as she left the pool. "It's nice to get the bronze, but it's still in the back of all of our minds: We wanted to be in the championship game."
Italy, which beat the Americans with two seconds remaining to get to the final, kept up its heroics in the final by rallying from two goals down in the extra periods.
With the score tied 7-7 at the end of regulation, Greece quickly sent the home crowd of 12,000 into delirium with a goal by Kyriaki Liosi -- her fifth -- 28 seconds into the first overtime.
Aikaterini Oikonomopoulou added another to give the Greeks a 9-7 cushion that had them waving flags, thinking gold and chanting, "Lift it up! Lift it up!" referring to the medal.
But the celebrations were premature. Grego cut the margin to a goal, and Tania di Mario pulled Italy level at 9-9 in the first extra period. Grego's third goal was the clincher, breaking the tie with a lob shot with 2:04 remaining in the second period of extra time.
Associated Press