Five-ring circus: The Thread of the XXXIII Olympiad

Even her facial expression no-sales the premise here. I'm impressed.

As was mentioned a while back re: Caitlin Clark, they don't just let you walk on to a 3x3 roster. You have to accumulate points by playing in sanctioned 3x3 events. Even if you just showed up, the last-chance qualifying tournaments were in April and May, so the playoffs.

Singapore did host the first Youth Olympics in 2010 but that was about 1/9th of the size.

 

Let's be honest - beach volleyball has women in bikinis with gratuitous ass shots.

That's why it got popular. May-Walsh didn't dominate until 2004-2012 and beach volleyball got started with the Atlanta games in '96.

Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes won gold 8 years before the ladies. No one remembers Steffes and not many more remember Kiraly despite him coaching the women's indoor team.

3x3 ain't beach volleyball.

And beach volleyball only grew at colleges because of Title IX and the fact it doesn't cost much.

 

Beach volleyball got popilar because of Misty and Kerry. You said it yourself, it started 1996 with the same women and the same bikinis and the same ass shots and no one gave a rat's fuck until two All-American chicks ran the show for a decade. That's why it grew, that's why it's one of the hardest tickets to get for the Olympics. That's why ut got in colleges.

 

I was at the opening day of beach volleyball in '96. It drew a banged-out, joyously raucous crowd at a venue outside of town in what was then the middle of near nowhere. It was popular from day one. The athletes were extremely emotional about becoming Olympians, too.

 

Both USA 3x3 teams being winless at the Olympics is definitely embarrassing

 

I’m sorry, I thought this was the Olympics, not a Bob Costas gun show.

 

Is beach volleyball now a sanctioned NCAA sport? For some reason, I thought it was just club with a championship tournament in Gulf Shores.

 

Big Ten, beach volleyball power, is just the most wrong thing ever typed.

 

From what I've seen of this 3x3 team, it would be Tim Tebow's asthmatic, bookkeeper son.

 

Elizabeth Beisel does little vignettes/in the arena stories for swimming, and they are very charming. I usually see her during the heats.
What's in a swimmer's bag/a look at the pre-race holding room. Stuff like that.
Much more interesting than "the player's coach thought he/she could be an Olympian at age 9" stuff.