ATHENS, Greece, August 29, 2004.- World number six Russia earned its ninth Men’s Olympic Volleyball medal in 10 trips to the Summer Games here Sunday by defeating the United States in three devastating sets for the bronze medal at the Athens 2004 Games. The score was 25-22, 27-25, 25-16.

The United States was playing for its first medal since taking the bronze in the 1992 Barcelona Games as both teams entered the Olympic third-place match after losing semi-finals contests to Brazil and Italy.
It was an impressive display from the Europeans as they blocked USA off the court, who looked to be lacking rhythm and cohesion, but fell short of their silver medal winning performance in Sydney four years ago.

Russia finished the match with 15 blocks for points –six by Alexey Kuleshov- including nine in the third set.

Kuleshov led the Russians with 16 points while Serguei Tetyukhin and Sergey Baranov added 13 and 12 respectively. For the USA. Clayton Stanley scored 13 and Kevin Barnett added 9.