VOLLEYBALL player Lucy Wicks believes Great Britain have opened the floodgates after chalking up a first ever Olympic victory at London 2012 – claiming the first one is always the hardest.

Wicks, 30, and co crashed to defeat to Russia when making history on Saturday with a first ever Olympic indoor volleyball appearance for Great Britain – but they were back in the record books for the right reasons late last night.

After going down in the first set to Algeria, Great Britain romped back to chalk up a famous 22-25, 25-19, 23-25, 25-19, 15-8 victory in a grueling match that lasted more than two hours and finished just after midnight.

Italy are up next and while Wicks believes Great Britain made hard work of seeing off Algeria, she admits she’s developing a taste for that winning feeling.

“It’s very special, it’s the first for any British indoor volleyball team at an Olympics . It’s amazing to be part of that,” she said. “We made a meal of it to be honest, it shouldn’t have gone to five sets but that’s what pressure does to you. “We were a little bit tense, things we normally do well were a bit off. No area was really firing throughout which was why we struggled. “It’s a team effort and we fought as a team, and never gave up and got out of that sticky situation so that’s all you can ask for really. “We will take this confidence forward into the next game, because we can definitely play better than that.” Wicks also paid tribute to the partisan crowd that stayed to cheer GB to victory at Earls Court late into the night.

She added: “The crowd were still here late, a lot of them stayed which we really appreciate. “It was great to have the crowd behind us, we started playing our best volleyball in that fifth set when we needed to.”

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