updated 10:31 a.m. ET Aug. 27, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - When Italian coach Pierluigi Formiconi said he’d remember the last-ditch semifinal win over the United States as the real gold-medal match at the Olympics, he pretty much wrote off the Greeks.

Greece made him rue his words until deep into overtime Thursday, when Melania Grego’s lob goal gave Italy a 10-9 victory and the women’s water polo gold. The world champion United States won the bronze medal 6-5 over Sydney 2000 champion Australia.

The Italians had to come from behind four times. Formiconi said he hadn’t expected so much from Greece, ranked 9th before the tournament.

“In the past, we’ve beaten them 7-2. Today I saw a different team, a different situation,” he said. “Of course, the crowd and the atmosphere was very supportive of the Greek team.”

But the narrow win didn’t alter Formiconi’s original thinking.

FREE VIDEO Water polo team gets revenge on Aussies Aug. 27: After losing the gold to Australia four years ago, the U.S. women's water polo team got some sweet revenge in the bronze medal match this year. The team talks to "Today" host Katie Couric about beating their rivals for the bronze. Today Show Olympics

“I’m not saying the Greeks didn’t deserve to be in the final, but I still believe the United States and Italy are the strongest,” he said.

Italy, which beat the Americans with two seconds left to get to the final, kept up its heroics in the final by rallying from two goals down in the extra periods.

With the game tied 7-7 at the end of regulation, Greece quickly sent the home crowd of 12,000 into delirium with a goal by Kyriaki Liosi — her fifth — 28 seconds into the first overtime. Aikaterini Oikonomopoulou added another to give the Greeks a 9-7 cushion that had them waving flags, thinking gold and chanting, “Lift it up! Lift it up!” referring to the medal.

But the celebrations were premature.

Grego cut the margin to a goal, and Tania di Mario pulled Italy level at 9-9 in the first extra period.

Grego’s third goal was the clincher, breaking the tie with a lob shot with 2:04 remaining in the second period of extra time.

When the buzzer sounded, di Mario sped around the pool doing a version of freestyle that resembled an out-of-control windmill.

She said she couldn’t contain her excitement. The rest of the squad jumped into the pool and knocked over the goal in their celebrations.

“This team has practically won everything that was up for the taking. Two-time world champions, four-time European champions, but I must say this is a dream come true,” Formiconi said. “An Olympic gold medal is worth all the medals we’ve won put together.”

Greece coach Kyriakos Iosifidis said his squad had mixed emotions.

“We’re overjoyed. We’re the silver medalists. We’ve never had a medal like this before,” he said. “But we came very close to the gold — we had it in our grasp — so we’re both happy and unhappy.”

Ellen Estes scored three goals, including the tiebreaker in the final period, to take the bronze after Australia rallied from a four-goal deficit.

The Australians had edged the United States for gold four years ago.

“We trained so hard for so long to be in the gold medal game. And we just wanted a medal after this,” said U.S. goalkeeper Jackie Frank, sobbing as she left the pool. “It’s nice to get the bronze, but it’s still in the back of all of our minds: We wanted to be in the championship game.”

Playing for bronze is “the hardest game you’re going to play in your life,” said Robin Beauregard, a silver medalist in Sydney.

“There’s no consolation prize for getting fourth ... You’re probably more nervous than you are going into a semifinal,” she said.

But unlike Sydney, she added, getting another match after last-ditch loss was a chance to vent some frustration.

“Some teams could have looked at that last-second loss and rolled over and said, ’Right, our Olympics are over,”’ she said. “But we didn’t come here just to win the gold medal, we came to win a medal — and we did that.”

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