Defending champion U.S. defeats Brazil for women's volleyball final berth in 5-set thriller

Karch Kiraly's reigning Olympic champion U.S. women's volleyball team will get its shot at a repeat gold medal. And it took every extra hustle play by every American on the floor against the mighty Brazilians.

As Brazil's fans waved flags, chanted and sang from every corner of South Paris Arena, the U.S. women edged their fellow world powerhouse in a five-set thriller on Thursday, a compelling rematch of their Tokyo final won in straight sets by the U.S.

That was the Americans' first Olympic title, and now they can make it two in a row.

Brazil got within 12-10 in the fifth before the U.S. held on for the victory, 25-23, 18-25, 25-15, 23-25, 15-11.

When Kathryn Plummer's winning spike closed it out, the Americans huddled together in a huge group hug and bounced on the court in celebration.

They will play in Sunday's Olympic final while Brazil will go for bronze Saturday against the loser of the late match between top-ranked Italy and No. 3 Turkey.

Brazil led 5-3 and was 10 points from taking the first-to-15 fifth set when the Americans rallied to tie it at 6-all and momentarily went ahead on Jordan Thompson's spike.

Both teams pulled off incredible saves close to the floor or even well out of bounds near their own benches to keep long points alive — and one fifth-set rally lasted more than 30 seconds.

Morocco beats Egypt for men's soccer bronze

Soufiane Rahimi scored two goals and Morocco won the bronze medal with a 6-0 rout of Egypt on Thursday for the team's first-ever podium finish at the Olympics.

Abde Ezzalzouli, Bilal El Khannouss, Akram Nakach and Achraf Hakimi also scored for Morocco, which went into halftime with a 2-0 lead to the delight of Moroccan fans at La Beaujoire Stadium.

It was Egypt's third fourth-place finish at the Olympics — after Amsterdam in 1928 and Tokyo in 1964.

Morocco has been inspired throughout the tournament by its senior men's team, which was a surprise semifinalist at the World Cup in 2022. The players have also been boosted by the faithful fans who have followed the team on its journey in France.

"We wanted to win the gold medal, that's for sure, but to win a game like this, to get our country's first-ever medal here and in front of so many of our fans, it feels incredible," said forward Ilias Akhomach.

Andrews wins keirin gold, Thomas grabs omnium crown

World champion Ellesse Andrews of New Zealand won the Olympic title in the women's keirin at the Paris Games on Thursday night, holding off Dutch rider Hetty van de Wouw and Britain's Emma Finucane in a sprint to the finish line.

In the men's omnium, Benjamin Thomas of France overcame a crash in the concluding points race to hold off Portugal's Iuri Leitão for gold. He finished with 164 points, Leitão had 153 and Fabio van den Bossche of Belgium took bronze with 131.

Andrews quickly went to the front as Finucane gave chase, but she was comfortably clear coming out of the fourth turn of the steeply banked velodrome. Van de Wouw came through late on Finucane's inside to snatch away the silver medal.

It was an especially gratifying victory for Andrews, who survived the repechages and made it all the way to the finals at the Tokyo Games, where she wound up with the silver medal behind Shanne Braspennincx.

Missing from the finals was Germany's Lea Friedrich, who won her second world title in the event two years ago on the same track at the Velodrome National de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. Friedrich was trying to swing around the outside of her semifinal when Steffie van der Peet moved up the track, forcing Friedrich to bail out of her sprint to avoid a crash.