This is a new feeling for Kerri Walsh Jennings. “Because everything has been exposed”.
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Brazil beat the Americans in the women’s beach volleyball semifinals Tuesday night and ended the gold medal run of three-time Olympic champion Kerri Walsh Jennings.
But their bid for Walsh Jennings’ fifth Olympic Games and Ross’ second looked in jeopardy after Walsh Jennings dislocated her right shoulder on May 27, 2015.
“We could have squashed the other team, and we have in the past”. “You’ve got to pass the ball to win matches”.
Passing poorly and making a number of mistakes, the Americans lost in straight sets, 22-20 and 21-18. Their team was down in the sixth and final inning when his sister hit a double to the top of the wall to clear the bases for a victory over Aptos. “I really [ramped] that up”, she said, “And that [carried] over into the way I play the game, my posture and my body awareness in general”. Now it will just be for bronze and not gold on Wednesday night at Copacabana Beach. “We had some tough times, and now we’re in the final!” Nobody can match Jennings’ reach in this game. Ross, a silver medalist in London, partnered with Walsh Jennings three years ago under the idea they could recreate the same sort of dominance the Americans have enjoyed on the beach for decades. The Brazilian women pulled away again, leading 12-9 entering the first technical timeout of the second set. She had previously won the gold medal in three consecutive Olympiads while teaming with Misty May-Treanor, who is retired. On top of it she had to play against the top ranked Brazilian team in front of a partisan crowd. Ross got a hand on a ball that sailed off the court. And it’s the first time since Sydney that Walsh Jennings has not won Olympic gold. “We had to fight with everything we had”.
Afterward, they praised each other in what has blossomed into a tight-knit partnership.
Walsh Jennings? There are pole-vaulters who couldn’t clear that bar as well as she did. The late starting time, midnight locally to quench NBC’s desire to show the match in NY prime time, only gave the spectators more time to. um, prepare.
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“It makes me very proud because I’ve done it along side people that I truly love and respect and admire and they make me better”, she said. “Our coaches have trained us not to do that”, she said. May-Treanor, taking some time to talk after locking up her temporary office in the corner of the LBCC gym, is comfortable with that. Alison and Bruno are in the men’s gold-medal match against Italy on Thursday. Then she had surgery in September. A serve into the net from Kerri Walsh Jennings and an unforced error from the USA women gave the Brazilian women a two-point lead. Asked if she could return for the 2020 Olympics, she said: “I know I can. I signed up for this”.
