U.S. women's volleyball team triumph despite shock news

BEIJING (Reuters) - The U.S. women's team beat Japan at the Olympics on Saturday despite having just three hours to recover from the shock that a relative of the U.S. men's coach was stabbed to death in Beijing.

"The players were very down," U.S. women's coach "Jenny" Lang Ping told reporters after her team's 3-1 victory on the first day of action in the volleyball tournament.

"It was very difficult for the players to move on that quickly. We only had three hours to deal with everything."

The stunned players did not go through normal match preparations, calling home instead to talk about the attack in which Todd Bachman, father-in-law of the U.S. men's volleyball team coach, was killed and his wife Barbara was wounded.

The couple's daughter Elisabeth, who was in the U.S. team in Athens in 2004 and is married to men's coach Hugh McCutcheon, was not hurt in the attack. The Chinese man who carried out the attack committed suicide and his motive was unclear.

"(The players) called their parents. We were supposed to have a technical meeting but we didn't do it. I gave them time to speak to their families," said Lang.

"It was difficult to deal with. It was the first time in my life that I had to deal with something like that before a game."

U.S. women's team captain Robyn Ah Mow-Santos said: "We are just going to say that our hearts go out to (Elisabeth) and her family."

Japan put on a tenacious display but the Americans won 25-20, 20-25, 25-19, 25-21 in the Group A contest.

Italy also had sadness in their camp when news emerged that the mother of their Cuban-born player Taismary Aguero had died.

Aguero, a two-time gold medalist with Cuba who left her country of birth and became an Italian citizen, had flown back to Europe in an attempt to get a visa from Cuban authorities after finding out that her mother was seriously ill.

But she returned to the Olympic village in Beijing on Saturday after hearing of the loss of her mother, the Italian Volleyball Federation said in a statement.

European champions Italy beat four-times Olympic gold winners Russia 3-1 in Group B.

(Editing by Ralph Gowling)

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