Walsh Jennings has played in 86 FIVB World Tour final fours with 54 gold, 18 silver, nine bronze medals and five 4th place finishes.
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Tuesday brought plenty of thrills in the beach volleyball tournament at the 2016 Rio Olympics, as Copacabana played host to the semifinals of both the men’s and women’s competition.
Walsh Jennings, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, had never lost a match in the Summer Games.
Seeded second in the competition, Agatha and Barbara posted a 2-0 (22-20, 21-18) win in 48 minutes over the third-seeded Americans in the fifth global meeting between the two teams.
Walsh Jennings and Ross entered the Games seeded No. 3 while Agatha and Barbara were No. 2. “But they outplayed us in every way”. Biles, who has broken so many records in her career, could only hope to tie one―most gold medals won by a female gymnast at a single Games―with her last competitive routine of 2016.
Walsh Jennings’ undefeated streak in four Olympic Games came to an abrupt end early Wednesday morning, and so did her quest for an unprecedented fourth gold medal. Before now Kerri had only played with her long-time partner Misty May. I say that with so much respect for them.
“The roles have been reversed before; I could have done a lot more”.
It was stunning to see the Brazil team continually serving Walsh Jennings, daring her to take control of the match, but it worked so often it would have been foolish to try it any other way.
Ever since her days at Archbishop Mitty High in San Jose and Stanford, Walsh Jennings has been the standard of volleyball excellence.
Just ahead of her floor competition, Biles posed with Team USA swimmers Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps for the cover of Sports Illustrated.
“It’s a huge deal”, said Ross, who won the silver medal in London. Italy defeated Russian Federation in the other men’s semifinal to clinch its first Olympic beach volleyball medal. “The plan was to go all-out, but then I saw Simone making mistakes”, said Wevers, a silver medallist behind Biles at last year’s worlds. “We had some tough times, and now we’re in the final!”
There was a slight blip in the champion’s preparations when he took to social media to defend himself from criticism after he was pictured wearing a Canada cap to support his wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who took bronze in the women’s heptathlon.
Brazil still has a chance to match its 2004 Olympic haul of three medals. According to The Washington Post, Biles isn’t expected to immediately make a decision about whether she’ll attend the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
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“You’re kidding me? The country which has never finished above China is about to”, state news agency Xinhua said on its official English-language Twitter account on Monday, alongside a photo of the medals tally.
