Olympics: Logan Tom and women's volleyball teammates lose gold to Brazil

By Michael C. Lewis

The Salt Lake TribuneBEIJING -- Twice she tried to blast her way through the block and power her team back from the brink of elimination. Both times, she was denied. And when finally Logan Tom had a clear shot, she fired too long and out of bounds.

Just like that, her gold-medal dream was over.

Yet the tears did not really come until she was on the podium, a silver medal from the Beijing Olympics around her neck -- a symbol of both a dream realized and a dream interrupted. She simply dropped her arms, rolled her eyes and watched the Brazilians across the net begin a dancing celebration that lasted long past the medal ceremony.

"You see tears," she said later, "they're tears of happiness." Nearly 10 years, Tom had waited for this moment, ever since leaving Highland High School as surely the greatest volleyball player in state history. Through two disappointing Olympics, and a third marred by the tragic attack on a former teammate's parents. She even left the team for three years, and wondered whether she would ever feel the weight of an Olympic medal around her neck.

So while it would have been nice to somehow chop down the top-ranked and unbeaten Brazilians in the gold-medal match at the Capital Gymnasium on Saturday night, rather than suffer a 25-15, 18-25, 25-13, 25-21 loss, Tom said she will walk away more than satisfied.

"I'm happy," she said. "I looked for a medal around my neck, and it's just such an accomplishment for this team and the USA and these girls, and it just brought tears to my eyes. And I'm more than thrilled."

The U.S. women had not won a volleyball medal since the 1984 Los Angeles Games, when they lost the gold-medal match to China and their current coach, Lang Ping, and nobody played a greater role ending the drought than Tom. She led the tournament in scoring, and led the team in coping with the attack on the parents of former teammate Elisabeth McCutcheon, who continued to e-mail the team throughout the tournament while attending to her hospitalized mother in Minnesota.

"We needed her to get a medal," setter Lindsey Berg said. "She's an amazing player, all around, and she got us here."

The Brazilians were just too good, however.

They had not lost even a single set in their seven victories en route to the final, and blew the Americans out of two of the first three games with their blocking and spectacular defense. Then came the dramatic final sequence, with Tom pounding away in hopes of delivering a golden finish to honor both the McCutcheon family and her own years of dedication -- she finished with a team-high 15 kills -- only to come up short.

"I could have swung a little higher, maybe, but I'm not the kind of person to go down without swinging," she said. "That's how I am, and I feel all right about it."

One of four three-time Olympians on the team who teammate Stacy Sykora called "one of the best volleyball players in the world, period," the 27-year-old did not rule out playing in a fourth Olympics at the 2012 London Games.

For now, though, she's going to keep praying for her friend's family and get started on a lifetime of cherishing her accomplishment.

"We fought our hearts out," she said. "So no kind of regret, no looking back. I'm happy with this thing around my neck right now, and I will be forever."