Beach volleyball at the Paris Olympics begins Saturday at the base of the Eiffel Tower. In the next week, there will be 72 pool-play matches, beginning with the USA’s Miles Partain and Andy Benesh vs. Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz. I’ve predicted how I think not only how that match will go, but the […] The post Mewhirter picks EVERY Paris Olympics beach pool-play volleyball match appeared first on Volleyballmag.com ..read more

The USA has six teams at the Paris Olympics, two indoors and four beach. By the time action concludes Monday night, all of them will have competed. The men’s beach team of Andy Benesh and Miles Partain get things going at 2 p.m. Paris time Saturday. At 9 p.m., the USA indoors men play Argentina […] The post Complete USA Volleyball indoors, beach Paris Olympics schedule appeared first on Volleyballmag.com ..read more

Athletes Unlimited Pro Volleyball will compete again this year in Mesa, Arizona, and some of its key players are returning for the pro volleyball venture’s fourth season. AU reported that all 30 matches will be played at the Arizona Athletic Grounds and that half of the 30 matches will be shown on  on ESPN platforms. […] The post De La Cruz, Hentz back with Athletes Unlimted, which returns to Mesa, AZ appeared first on Volleyballmag.com ..read more

The USA women huddle during a Volleyball Nations League match/Volleyball World photo HERMOSA BEACH, California — On and on and on the list went, to the point that Tri Bourne, sitting down with USA Volleyball outside hitter Kelsey Robinson Cook one day and middle Dana Rettke another, laughed and wondered: So. .. is there any team in the Paris Olympic Games that isn’t contending for a medal? To which both of them replied, in effect: Not really. “Now there’s a lot of teams that have a realistic chance of winning a gold medal,” Robinson Cook said. “I would say Turkey, Brazil, China, Japan, Italy ..read more

Bethania De La Cruz celebrates winning the 2022 Athletes Unlimited volleyball season/AU photo Athletes Unlimited Pro Volleyball will compete again this year in Mesa, Arizona, and some of its key players are returning for the pro volleyball venture’s fourth season. AU reported that all 30 matches will be played at the Arizona Athletic Grounds and that half of the 30 matches will be shown on  on ESPN platforms. AU reported that 2022 champion Bethania De La Cruz and 2023 top defensive player Morgan Hentz are returning. Those two, and many of the others, played in the inaugural Pro Volleyball ..read more

HERMOSA BEACH, California — Chase Budinger and Miles Evans have embraced their story. They’re underdogs of a distinctly American variety: confident enough in themselves to seek an Olympic bid despite the vast majority of the beach volleyball world saying it wasn’t going to happen — and then, despite what may have appeared to be a classic case of delusional American overconfidence, making it happen. Knew it the moment they agreed to partner with one another throughout this Paris Olympic quad. Knew it when the first event of the Olympic qualifying period was met with stiff resistance, a 17-21 ..read more

HERMOSA BEACH, California — Brian Cook runs an unbiased, deeply metric-based volleyball analytical site called TruVolley. While Cook, an American who once competed for USA Volleyball and is married to Olympic gold medalist Kelsey Robinson-Cook, clearly has a leaning towards the USA, his program does not. It is a machine doing what machines do: Taking numbers, spinning them up, spitting them out. One million unemotional, unbiased simulations of the Olympic Games in all. Which makes the numbers that produced regarding the upcoming Olympic Games all the more enticing for USA beach volleyball fan ..read more

When Anders Mol and Christian Sorum won 18 gold medals over a stretch of 26 tournaments from 2018-2023, including a World Championship and a record-breaking four consecutive European Championships, it was widely considered to be a run of dominance the beach volleyball world was unlikely to ever see again. We’re seeing it again. David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig, Sweden’s indefatigable, electrifying duo, are still four years from proving they can sustain the level of play Norway did for six straight seasons. But what they have done since sweeping Mol and Sorum in the gold medal match of the 2023 ..read more

Rested and ready. “This year the focus has been to be at our best when we step on the court in Paris,” USA men’s Olympic volleyball coach John Speraw said. “This is a veteran team and they need to be feeling rested and strong and healthy. And it has been a challenge for us. It hasn’t been the smoothest of summers in that regard, but we’re starting to get healthy and have had some good training.”  Accordingly the USA men’ took advantage of a less-than-steller Volleyball Nations League performance that allowed for downtime, practice and healing. Which is why Speraw didn’t mind that his tea ..read more

In addition to defending-champion USA, there are 11 other women’s teams competing for volleyball gold in the Paris Olympics. This is a look at each of them. These Olympics feature a new and different format. Gone are the six-team pools, replaced with three pools of four each. The top two squads in each pool make the final eight and will be joined in the single-elimination bracket by the top two third-place finishers. How is that determined? Victories, match points and set ratios. So every match — perhaps every point — is important. These 11 Olympics teams feature three former NCAA players, a s ..read more