Dinamo-Ak Bars KAZAN raised to the occasion on the last day the tournament in Novara to beat VK UP OLOMOUC 3-0. It’s a bittersweet result for the Russian team who admitted earlier this week to have not shown their best value so far. Three points gained in the last match help KAZAN to jump to the third position in Pool E. OLOMOUC is finishing the 1st Leg without gaining a point.

KAZAN established the dominance half way into the opening set, taking the lead as far as 19-9. OLOMOUC decreased the gap in the second set, but could not get past the performance of the Russian side. The Czech team was close to change the odds in their favour in the last set, when they came as close as 21-19, but KAZAN maintained the lead to win 25-20. Service and Block were crucial for KAZAN - the team gained 10 points in each element, including 4 blocks made by Irina Koroleva and 3 aces each by Olga Biryukova and Arina Fedorovtseva.

• Marina Maryukhnich was awarded MVP of the match, as the middle blocker of KAZAN celebrates her 38th birthday today. It's her third game in Pala Igor venue: she previously played there in the 2009 CEV Cup Final with Uralochka Ekaterinburg and the CEV Cup game in 2014 with Dinamo Krasnodar.

• Arina Fedorovtseva was the best scorer of the game with 20 points and 55% of efficiency.

• On the Czech side of the net, the best scorer was Maria Schlegel who scored 14 points with 55% of positivity.

• Kazan made the difference with a very aggressive serve-strategy (10 aces scored) and a very good block-performance (10 blocks).

Olga Biryukova, outside spiker of Dinamo-Ak Bars KAZAN: "It's our first victory in the 2021 CEV Champions League and we are happy about it, but we are also sad for having lost the previous two games. We will prepare for the tournament in Szczecin to the best of our abilities, in order to score more points and try to go through the Playoff Phase".

Maria Schlegel, outside spiker of Vk Up OLOMOUC: "We are so happy for our performances, we are growing a lot as a team and we should consider that for several weeks we could not play volleyball. We were only able to train outdoors because of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions in our country. We fought all three matches and in the end it is okay that we lost because we can be proud of our spirit".