MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s men’s volleyball team for the first time won the European championship on Sunday, two weeks after the country’s women’s team won the title.
The men’s team beat Italy for the top spot at the final match in Copenhagen. While their Soviet predecessors had won the title 12 times, this was the first time the Russian Federation’s men’s team clinched the European gold.
The Russian women’s team beat Germany on September 15 for the top European title, their fifth in the past two decades.
The women’s victory came little more than a year after coach Sergei Ovchinnikov committed suicide in the aftermath of a surprise defeat for the team in the quarterfinals of the Olympic Games.
