For the first time since the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Kerri Walsh-Jennings will not receive a gold medal in women’s beach volleyball. Those figures represent a 1 percent improvement from Monday, both in the overnight and in the demo, but they were significantly down from last Tuesday, when Michael Phelps and the women’s gymnastics squad added to their extraordinary medal totals. Asked if she could return for the 2020 Olympics, she said: “I know I can”.
Advertisement
The pairs traded points to a five-all tie to open the third frame, but it was Brazil that would inch ahead each time until Walsh Jennings turned away three Brazilian attacks before finishing a rally with her kill for a 7-6 U.S. lead.
The Brazilian women will face Germany’s Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst in the Gold Medal Match while Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross will play Larissa and Talita of Brazil in the Bronze Medal Match.
The victory marked Walsh Jennings’ fourth Olympic medal, making her the oldest female medal victor in beach volleyball history and the fifth beach volleyball player to win medals with two different partners.
Americans Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross took home the bronze in beach volleyball.
The United States have won six of a possible 12 gold medals in the sport and 10 overall.
Brazil still has a chance to match its 2004 Olympic haul of three medals. It got worse as the night went on. 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. Instead, Kerri said the Brazilians had a gameplan to attack the weakest link, and that was her. “He made it about being your best”. “The semifinal match in sports is really gnarly, to put yourself in that position, and the bronze medal match is ten times harder”.
For now, she says, the bronze medal match is the only thing on her mind. She recently got her Master’s degree from Concordia University in Irvine, CA and was named director of volleyball operations at Long Beach City College back in June, according to Bustle.
Advertisement
The men’s final is Thursday. But to match the feat in Rio, the women will have to beat the defending world champions.
