Bulgaria triumphed over the hosts of the Olympic Games from China by marking a great 3-1 victory before the eyes of 12,000 Beijing fans at its men's volleyball opener on Sunday.

Bulgaria, ranked number 4 in the world, took the third pool A match with a score of 25-20, 25-21, 26-28, 25-19.

The young talents Matey Kaziyski and Nikolov started strong and organized spikes against the vulnerable Chinese block.

Krasimir Gaydarski closed the first set 25-20, while Kostadin Stoykov hit the vital point for Bulgaria to take the second set 25-21 when the powerful serves proved to be deadly to the Chinese players as the latter could barely organize effective counterattacks with poor reception.

China fought back successfully at the third set. After missing one set point, the Chinese grasped the set 28-26 thanks to a serve error by Nikolov and a high spike by Yuan.

The Bulgarians controlled the Chinese players' comeback at the fourth set to end it 25-19.

The bad news in the Bulgarian camp were related to the sudden announcement the captain Plamen Konstantinov will not be able to take part in the Olympics due to injuries. No more details have been given so far.

Earlier in the day, defending champion Brazil breezed past Egypt in straight sets, Athens runner-up Italy upset Japan 3-1, Russia overcome Serbia also 3-1, while the United States, this year's World League champion clinched a hard win after a five-set tussle against Olympic newcomer Venezuela.

Twelve men's teams are divided into two groups to compete in the preliminary round of the Olympic volleyball tournaments that run through August 10-18. The knockout stages are to begin two days after later.

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