Olympics Seashore
July 22, 2024
When Anders Mol and Christian Sorum received 18 gold medals over a stretch of 26 tournaments from 2018-2023, together with a World Championship and a record-breaking 4 consecutive European Championships, it was extensively thought-about to be a run of dominance the seaside volleyball world was unlikely to ever see once more.
We’re seeing it once more.
David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig, Sweden’s indefatigable, electrifying duo, are nonetheless 4 years from proving they will maintain the extent of play Norway did for six straight seasons. However what they’ve achieved since sweeping Mol and Sorum within the gold medal match of the 2023 Tepic Elite16 — their second win over Norway — is certifiably Norwegian. Since that win in Tepic, Sweden has gone on to win eight extra golds, together with a second straight European Championship, and is at present on a streak of 10 consecutive finals, 4 straight golds, and a 16-match unbeaten streak.
Because the Paris Olympics method this week, with the primary match Saturday afternoon, it presents the inevitable query: Who’s the favourite, the 22-year-old Swedes who’ve revolutionized the way in which the seaside recreation is performed, leaving the remainder of the world in a futile seek for solutions that can’t be discovered, or Norway, the defending Olympic gold medalists who ushered within the present period of Scandinavian dominance?
Maybe the higher query: Does the remainder of the sphere have an opportunity at gold?
David Ahman, Jonatan Hellvig, and a 44-percent shot at gold
The oddsmakers, and volleyball sabermatrician Brian Prepare dinner’s a million simulations of the Olympic Video games through his analytical web site, TruVolley, each, unsurprisingly, favor Sweden. Ahman and Hellvig are the world No. 1 by practically 2,000 factors, with Mol and Sorum a distant second. BetOnline has Sweden at +115 to win gold — heavier favorites than even Brazil’s Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa on the ladies’s facet — whereas Norway is +400. When Prepare dinner ran a million simulations of the Olympics, Sweden received gold in 44 p.c, made a closing in 56 p.c, and received a medal in practically 70 p.c. Mol and Sorum defended their Tokyo gold medal in 19 p.c of these simulations and received a medal of a special colour in one other 27 p.c.
To see an all-Scandanavian closing can be probably the most becoming gold medal match since maybe the all-American closing of 1996, when Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes squared off with Mike Dodd and Mike Whitmarsh in Atlanta.
To take action would require each distinctive play and an distinctive dose of luck.
Seashore volleyball followers — and American followers to be particular — will keep in mind, with no specific fondness, the 2016 Olympic draw, wherein the highest two groups on this planet, Brazil’s Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt, and Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena, bumped into each other not within the gold medal match, however the quarterfinals.
The match lived as much as the billing, a 14-21, 21-12, 9-15 American loss in breezy circumstances in entrance of a sold-out stadium, and as many anticipated, it proved to be the de facto gold medal match, as Bruno and Alison went on to win in entrance of a rollicking residence crowd.
Ought to each Mol and Sorum and Ahman and Hellvig break pool, as they’re closely favored to do, it may come right down to sheer luck in the event that they wind up on the identical facet of the bracket or not.
And, in fact, even when they’re on opposing ends, it is going to require an enormous effort to win the following three matches to make it to the finals.
Land mines in all places
After pool play, land mines will probably be ubiquitous on the boys’s facet. After Mol and Sorum, the following likeliest crew to win gold will not be Germany’s Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler, they of seven straight top-fives in 2024, or Brazil’s George and Andre, house owners of a world-leading 5 medals this season, and even the reigning world champs, Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner, however the No. 7 seed: Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot.
That’s how deep the boys’s area is. When together with Evandro Goncalves and Arthur Mariano — two golds and a silver this yr — Poland’s Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak, who’re coming off a silver on the Vienna Elite16; Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Sam Cottafava and their two consecutive top-fives; and Steven Van de Velde and Matthew Immers, with six top-fives and a silver medal on the Brasilia Elite16, nicely, there will probably be no straightforward street when the spherical of 16 begins.
All of that, and we haven’t even talked about the People.
Can Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, or Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, convey residence the primary American males’s seaside volleyball Olympic medal since 2008?
TruVolley odds of an American medal: 13.12 p.c
When Prepare dinner ran his simulations, Benesh and Partain medaled in 11.14 p.c of them. Budinger and Evans? Simply 1.98 p.c.
These numbers, when contemplating each the measureables — outcomes, latest wins and losses, and many others. — and intangibles — momentum, a latest breakthrough — make sense. Benesh and Partain have received only one medal since their honeymoon run this time final yr, once they received bronze on the Ostrava Elite16, gold in Gstaad, and silver in Montreal, all inside a month’s time. This season, they’ve received simply 14 of their 29 matches and are 8-14 towards groups who will probably be competing in Paris.
However the Benesh and Partain who confirmed up in Vienna two weeks in the past, the place they completed fifth, had been an undeniably totally different model of the listless crew who completed ninth in Gstaad the week earlier than. If ever there have been a time to rediscover the sensible type they had been in final summer time, now could be the time — and it appears they’re doing simply that, with a powerful displaying in Austria and every week coaching in Italy with Nicolai and Cottafava.
Even higher information for American followers is that they’re a digital lock to interrupt pool. Getting slotted into Pool D, alongside George and Andre, Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz, and Morocco’s Mohamed Abicha and Zouheir Elgraoui, is, suffice it to say, a present. It’s unbelievable that Morocco will win a set, a lot much less a match, which is able to bode nicely for the purpose and set differential that tiebreaks for third-place groups are primarily based upon. Benesh and Partain will, on the very least, break pool.
From there, given the aforementioned depth of expertise, all bets are off.
Budinger and Evans have obtained no such present. As an alternative, they’re in what Prepare dinner has evaluated because the second-strongest pool, with France’s Arnaud Gauthier-Rat and Youssef Krou, Boermans and de Groot, and Spain’s Adrian Gavira and Pablo Herrera and their 10 Olympics between them.
Krou, nevertheless, is coming off an harm, and Budinger and Evans have received two of their three matches towards Spain in 2024. Prepare dinner has the percentages of Budinger and Evans breaking pool at 51.34 p.c — lower than two p.c increased than France.
Each match in Pool F, then, will probably be appointment viewing.
As is each match that features a Scandinavian crew.
Who’re the USA Seashore Volleyball gamers?
For the uninitiated, popping in through the Olympic Video games to cheer on the house groups, who’re Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, and Chase Budinger and Miles Evans?
Partain is the youngest of the bunch, a 22-year-old from Pacific Palisades, California, a precocious expertise who shattered the file for youngest participant to make an AVP principal draw when he did so in Hermosa Seashore of 2017, qualifying together with his brother, Marcus, when he was simply 15 years and 7 months outdated. Within the seven years since, his enchancment has been meteoric. Two years after his AVP debut, he grew to become the youngest to win a NORCECA gold medal, when he and Paul Lotman surprised Chaim Schalk and Jeremy Casebeer within the semifinals and stood atop the rostrum in Jamaica. Later that summer time, he was named the AVP Rookie of the 12 months, the primary of many accolades on an more and more prolonged resume, one which now consists of Offensive Participant of the 12 months (2022, 2023), MVP (2023), Staff of the 12 months (2023), and Seashore Professional Tour Rookie of the 12 months (2023).
Most of these, in fact, had been received alongside both Benesh or Lotman, each of whom will probably be becoming a member of Partain in Paris, Lotman as assistant coach to Mike Placek, Benesh as his 6-foot-9 companion. Benesh was raised 45 minutes south of Partain, in Palos Verdes, California, and, out of highschool, would have been anticipated to make the indoor nationwide crew earlier than seaside. A four-year starter at USC as a center, Benesh performed professionally briefly in Switzerland earlier than a litany of accidents took him out of the health club and into an workplace job he shortly hated.
To the seaside he went — and to the seaside he has thrived. The 2022 Most Improved Participant was named the 2023 VolleyballMag AVP MVP, and he’s now thought-about the very best blocker in the US, with the statistics and finishes to show it. And at 29 years outdated, his is a reputation many will probably be listening to for years — a decade even — to return.
Budinger and Evans took a decidedly totally different path to Paris. Whereas Benesh and Partain established an unimpeachable lead early within the qualifying interval, Budinger and Evans made a late push within the fall of 2023 and surpassed Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner halfway via the spring, clinching their spot within the closing occasion.
For Budinger, a 36-year-old from Encinitas, California, qualifying places him in uncommon air, one of many best dual-sport athletes of all-time. The previous small ahead taken within the second spherical of the 2009 NBA draft, Budinger performed seven seasons within the league, guarding Kobe Bryant, profitable co-MVP honors with Kevin Durant on the 2006 McDonald’s All-American Sport, even competing in a dunk contest. However he was additionally one of many high indoor volleyball gamers in the US in highschool, and will have performed school wherever he so selected.
Now he’s selecting the seaside.
“The Olympics was all the time the objective,” he stated on SANDCAST: Seashore Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter. “I all the time set targets and I all the time attempt to set my targets as excessive as potential and it all the time motivates me to have one thing to go for. Once I switched, Olympics was all the time the objective. I wouldn’t have traveled internationally from the beginning if Olympics wasn’t the objective. My first yr I used to be attempting to get that have as a result of I knew sooner or later I’d have a shot of creating this Olympic run.”
When the Olympic run began, just one p.c of those that responded to a ballot anticipated Budinger and Miles Evans to qualify. The underdog function is one they’ve each embraced, and it’s one Evans has turn into fairly conversant in all through his profession. The 6-foot-4, 34-year-old defender from Santa Barbara, California, has by no means received an AVP and didn’t win his first gold medal in a Seashore Professional Tour occasion on the Problem stage or increased till final fall, when he and Budinger danced their approach to a gold in Haikou, China. Then they received one other two weeks later in Thailand, this one bronze.
However the message was despatched: Evans, the man who had been yearly handed up on by the highest American blockers yr after yr, was a legit menace to qualify.
This spring and early summer time, they continued their torrid run, making the quarterfinals or higher in six of eight tournaments and received a crucial gold medal on the NORCECA Continental Championships, the event they each take into account the one which pushed them into the Paris Olympic Video games.
“That was by far the most important,” Evans stated. “It grew to become the most important event and the most important match.”
Now, they’ve earned a far larger stage, at a far larger event, the place each match will turn into their greatest match.
