|
Post by Admin on Jul 28, 2021 0:21:55 GMT
From an outside perspective, this year’s Olympic Games might not be ideal as an athlete’s first. Due to COVID-19, the games are happening a year later than scheduled, no spectators are allowed — including athletes’ families — and the Olympic Village is set up to reduce interaction among athletes. But for U.S. beach volleyball player and former Trojan standout Kelly Claes, the unconventional setup might be an advantage. “I love the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss,’” she said. “It’s not like we’ve been to an Olympics before and have been able to experience that enormous, packed stadium with family being there. It feels just the same as what we’ve been doing.” As the youngest duo to ever represent the U.S. in beach volleyball at the Olympics, Claes, 25, and her partner Sarah Sponcil, 24, won gold at the FIVB Beach World Tour in Sochi, Russia, earlier this summer and earned a trip to Tokyo. The following week, the duo took gold at another event at Ostrava, Czech Republic, where American beach volleyball legend Kerri Walsh Jennings and her partner Brooke Sweat were upset in the qualifying rounds by a team from the Netherlands. “When it came down to that last tournament, I had this super romanticized idea of how it would end,” she said. “It was such a tight race, and we were so close on points in the tournament, that I imagined both of us in this final battle, blood, sweat and tears, whoever’s left standing is going to the Olympics.” Though earning a spot as the youngest duo ever and watching a living legend of the sport lose may seem like surreal moments, Claes has done her best to block out the noise. Despite her age, she displays an unwavering level of professionalism and confidence. “I have so much respect for [Walsh Jennings and Sweat], and Kerri’s done so much for the sport,” she said. “Yes, it is crazy that she’s not in this Olympics, but we earned our spot after a long and grueling process.”
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 28, 2021 5:19:37 GMT
It is only days before Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes will begin their last push for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Six events remain on the schedule: Doha, three tournaments in Cancun, Sochi, and Ostrava. Six events left to claim the second American berth to Tokyo. They understand the magnitude of what needs to be done in order to qualify. They are just 24 and 25 years old, yet they must pass a five-time Olympian in Kerri Walsh Jennings, the greatest to ever play this game, the one whom they grew up watching on TV in Athens and Beijing and London and, just last quad, Rio de Janeiro. They were kids then, in 2016, when Walsh Jennings and April Ross won bronze medals. Claes was 21, Sponcil 20. Now they are peers. Rivals. http://instagram.com/p/CRyd0HRMfll Now they must pass Walsh Jennings, and they must do so from the worst starting block possible: Beginning with the country quota, potentially for all six remaining events. Not only that, but in order to pass Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat, they have to medal. They haven’t medaled in nearly two years. Yet Sponcil isn’t worried. Not outwardly, anyway, which is almost always exactly as she’s feeling inward, too, at least when she’s talking to her roommate, Katie Spieler. “You think she is superwoman and doesn’t have a worry in the world about her play because in your mind she is a flawless baller,” says Spieler, a baller in her own right and a good friend of Sponcil’s. “But some of my favorite talks with Sarah, after a long day of training, were when we would talk volleyball and she would bring up parts of her game she was frustrated with and new things she was trying to work on. She is always striving to be better.” http://instagram.com/p/CRpw809MuAw Sponcil knows the work she has put in. For the better part of the last two years, her days have begun at 6:30 a.m. and usually end around 7, long hours filled with practice, lifting, film, physical therapy and recovery, more film, individual meetings. As she does on the rare nights that both she and Spieler are home, Sponcil is sitting on the couch with Spieler, talking about the upcoming country quota against Sara Hughes and Emily Day, a match she must win just to earn the right to compete in the Doha qualifier. It’s a situation about which many might — and do — complain or gripe. Sponcil and Claes are the sixth-ranked team on the planet, and yet here they are, beginning each event on the lowest rung of the ladder. Sponcil does not gripe or complain. She never gripes or complains. “Her mindset on being in almost every country quota,” Spieler says, “was that it was going to make a fun story to write.”
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 31, 2021 22:21:45 GMT
“Love Rollercoaster” was blaring from the speakers at Shiokaze Park, but for American beach volleyball players Kelly Claes and Sarah Sponcil, it was another ride on the rollercoaster of weirdness as they took on a tough Brazilian team on a stiflingly hot Saturday morning. Team USA’s youngest-ever beach volleyball team was able to dispatch Ana Patricia Silva Ramos and Rebecca Cavalcanti Barbossa Silva in three sets to win their third straight victory in the Tokyo Olympics and stay in medal contention. But Tokyo is under a state of emergency because of a rise in Covid-19 cases, so there was only a smattering of applause when it was over. Most of the 12,000 seats were empty. “Yes,” they answered in unison when asked if they find it jarring to compete to an audience of empty seats. “We’ve gotten kind of used to it, but it’s still weird,” Claes, her skin glazed with sweat and sand, said after the match. “You can’t feed off their energy, so we have to feed off our energy.” What’s worse, Sponsil said, is they can’t really cut loose and celebrate. They’re only allowed to spend two hours a day together because Claes, 25, is in quarantine until Sunday. Why? Because on the flight over to Japan Claes sat near a passenger who tested positive for Covid. “We’re used to literally being joined at the hip, so that’s hard,” said Sponsil, 24. Getting into the venue requires passing through a gantlet of security. Reporters arriving to cover the competition had their temperatures checked not once but twice and had to empty their pockets as they passed through security. Those who brought drinks had to open the bottles and take a sip. “You must drink,” a smiling but insistent security guard said. And they had to take the empty bottles with them when they left, because for security reasons, the garbage and recycling cans were sealed with plastic wrap to prevent anybody from using them.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2021 5:47:44 GMT
The medal hopes of a previously unbeaten U.S. women's beach volleyball team vanished on Sunday in the most maddening way imaginable. Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes appeared to have won a pivotal replay challenge late in a round of 16 elimination match, only to have the outcome reversed. With the favored U.S. team trailing 12-11 in the decisive third set, Sponcil hit a deep serve that Canada's Heather Bansley and Brandie Wilkerson opted to let go. A lines judge initially ruled the serve sailed long and awarded the point to Canada. A TV replay revealed that the ball appeared to have landed just outside the line, though NBC commentator Dain Blanton described it as "the closest play we've ever seen." According to FIVB beach volleyball rules, a ball is "in" if some part of it touches the boundary lines and "out" if it falls on the ground completely outside the boundary lines. Sponcil and Claes challenged the out call and initially appeared to have won. Then things got weird when the review continued anew. This time, after a lengthy pause, the serve was ruled out. Here was the explanation Blanton received after the match: The overturned decision left Canada's Bansley and Wilkerson high-fiving in celebration while Sponcil and Claes angrily approached the referee to protest. "The ball was out," the referee told Sponcil.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 2, 2021 6:43:35 GMT
The dynamic duo of Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes were knocked out in the round of 16 of the 2021 Olympics beach volleyball tournament.
The Americans lost to Canadian pair Heather Bansley and Brandie Wilkerson in an upset. Sponcil and Claes ranked No. 3 in the world. Bansley and Wilkerson ranked No. 16.
Was it a fair result? Twitter doesn’t think so.
In the third set, with Canada leading 12-11, Sponcil’s serve was called out. Sponcil and Claes challenged the ruling and the officials reversed it on replay review.
That’s when things got weird. Canada challenged the challenge and the referees reversed the reversal. Sponcil and Claes went on to lose the third set and the match.
No one understands the review in Sponcil and Claes’ beach volleyball loss Twitter was irate, throwing around the word “ROBBED” with abandon.
|
|