Third straight volleyball title for Olympiakos
Olympiakos won its 25th league title on May 2, beating Iraklis 3-0 at home to conclude a sweep over its rival in the final series.
The Reds played behind closed doors at Rendi due to fan violence in the previous round, but were dominant throughout Game 3 of the best-of-five series.
They won the first set 25-21 and were only challenged in the second. Iraklis rallied to a 20-15 lead, but the hosts bounced back to win the set 26-24, dashing any hopes Iraklis might have had of a fightback.
The third set seemed a mere formality as Olympiakos led 25-19 to win the match and the title in a season plagued by financial problems for the Piraeus club.
It has now completed the double and will compete in next season’s Champions League along with Iraklis.
Notably, the doors opened after the end of the game and some 1,000 fans of Olympiakos who were watching the match on a big screen outside, stormed in and celebrated with the players and coach Yiannis Kalmazidis.
“This was a great achievement. My team was not lucky; it deserved to win the title,» said Kalmazidis, who started the season as an assistant to Flavio Gulinelli.
This was the third straight league title for Olympiakos, all of them without enjoying home advantage in the finals.
On a less happy note for the club, Dimitris Tzourits, the Olympiakos utility man who plays both as a blocker and as an opposite, confirmed that he may well leave this summer: «I do not want to stay in Greece. I want to go abroad. I will have to choose whether I’ll play as a blocker or as an opposite. You cannot sit on two chairs with one ass!”
