Dmitry Muserskiy

Russian volleyball player and middle blocker who won Olympic gold in 2012 and is known as one of the tallest players in professional volleyball

Russia was down two sets to one against Brazil in the 2012 London Olympic final, the kind of deficit that ends most volleyball matches, when Dmitry Muserskiy took over. He scored 31 points across the remaining three sets, an Olympic final record, as Russia completed one of the sport's most improbable comebacks to win the country's first Olympic volleyball gold. At 218cm (7'2"), Muserskiy was always going to get attention for his height alone, but the London final is what actually made him a name beyond volleyball circles -- a single match performance still cited as one of the sport's great individual displays, regardless of how the rest of his career played out. Reach alone doesn't win Olympic finals; the technical hitting and timing he'd spent years building underneath that frame is what turned a physical outlier into a genuine match-winner. He backed the Olympic title with a World League win in 2011 and a European Championship in 2013, but it's the 2012 final specifically that reshaped how coaches think about the opposite hitter position -- proof that a player built like a mismatch on paper could still be the one delivering the decisive points when a match is actually on the line.

Dominant middle blocker utilizing exceptional height for blocking and attacking

Revolutionized the middle blocker position with his exceptional height and reach

• Olympic Gold Medal 2012
• World League Winner 2011
• European Championship Winner 2013