After the last ball of the 3:1 win quarter-final Olympic team against Slovenia, Bartosz Kurek fell onto the pitch and tears of happiness were probably flowing from his eyes. And a little later, coach Nikola Grbić approached him and hugged him. And no wonder, because it was a doubly special moment for the captain of the White and Reds.
The tap has finally turned – this sentence will probably appear in many reports and comments. The almost 36-year-old volleyball player has already been through this several times. Now, jokingly, you can write that he first had to get hit in the head to break through. Although the play by Klemen Cebluj from the second set, who brushed the ball against the top of the head of the blocking captain of the White and Reds, was of course in no way crucial here. What is more telling is that along with breaking the famous curse of the Polish Olympic quarterfinals, their commander also broke through.
Kurek was doubling down on his efforts from the beginning of Monday's match. He jumped and dived for balls in defense with every action. He showed with every gesture – I am here and I am trying. Only the effects were initially small, because each of his attacks in the first half of the opening set was countered, and he himself only got nervous when he was not able to play well in the safety.
– I think it was very refreshing for us to hear that we are not the favorites and that many people doubt us. It's a nice change after so many years of sweetness – Kurek told Sport.pl in an interview given just before the games.
At that time, the concerns were about the whole team, because the performance of the vice-champions of the world and the champions of Europe was not, to put it mildly, captivating. One could even get the impression that every point was the result of great suffering. The wings were a huge topic – the only bright spot just before the games was Tomasz Fornal. Wilfredo Leon was spared due to a minor injury, and Kamil Semeniuk and Aleksander Śliwka were far from their top form. This made the gap in the attacker position even more striking.
And this gap was hard to miss, especially in the three group games of the games. Watching Kurek's effectiveness in attack was simply not pleasant – 25 percent in the match against Egypt, 29 percent with Brazil and 35 against Italy. However, Grbić did not have much room to maneuver, because the reserve Łukasz Kaczmarek – who a year ago brilliantly replaced the injured Kurek in the European Championships and Olympic qualifications – did not make a positive difference with any of his entries.
More and more people began to say that the Polish coach should use the reserve player Bartłomiej Bołądź, but the coach stuck to his team captain. When asked about this, he emphasized that Kurek's main problem is analytical paralysis, which causes him to not only harm himself, but also does not help the team.
– Perfectionism is good as long as it pushes you to be better and better. The problem starts when you are constantly dissatisfied with yourself, and that stops you. It took me most of my career to come to such thoughts. That's what I was explaining to Bartek – explained the Serb.
He believed all along that Kurek would make a breakthrough. His predecessor did the same. Vital Heynen. It is impossible to forget the first year of the eccentric Belgian's work with the White and Reds, when the attacker was also looking for form for a long time. He had successive poor matches, and Heynen stubbornly believed in him despite the increasingly strong voices of doubt from outside. A friendly match with Belgium just before the World Cup, when at one point he had one ball out of 11, became a kind of symbol. Everyone thought that Kurek had to be taken off, even he himself. Heynen was the only one who waited patiently and waited. In the key matches of the World Cup, the attacker was a leader with a capital “L”, and at the end he took home the tournament MVP statuette.
Now the quarterfinal with Slovenia started poorly, but from the second set he was what his teammates needed. Effectiveness in attack and good serves did the trick. It wasn't perfect yet, but let's hope that Kurek keeps it for the medal round matches.
Kurek's fate in the Polish national team is truly a story for a movie. A star of the future who won the European Championship with the team in 2009. Then a tragedy after coach Stephane Antiga removed him from the squad just before the World Championship in 2014, which ended with the long-awaited gold. The volleyball player took this decision hard, but he returned to the team and has been an essential element since then. The Olympic Games in London, the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the Olympic Games in Tokyo – in each of these events he was a sure thing. In each he gave his all, but it did not help avoid the traditional defeat in the quarterfinals. Since the games in Japan, the team has been colloquially called the “Gang Łysego”, precisely because of Kurek's hairstyle. The gang leader showed on Monday that he returned at the most important moment.