Beach Volleyball Preview
The U.S. beach volleyball teams have won at least one medal at every Olympic Games since the sport debuted in 1996. Team USA is looking to continue that streak at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – now taking place in 2021 after being postponed due to COVI-19 – as a strong group of athletes fight to qualify.
Several of the top U.S. beach volleyball athletes have extensive international experience, but only one team remains that competed at the Olympic Games Rio 2016. Three-time Olympian Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena placed fifth in Rio, and they are looking to reach the Olympic stage once again and sit in second place among U.S. men’s teams.
Shortly after the Rio Games, the bronze-medal team of Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross split to search for new partners. For Ross, the search ended at the end of 2017 when she had a tryout with indoor player Alix Klineman, a standout at Stanford University. The pair has improved quickly and placed second at the 2019 world championships and first at the 2019 FIVB five-star event in Gstaad, Switzerland. Their 2019 finishes have put them way ahead of their U.S. competitors in the race for Olympic points.
Walsh Jennings, who is looking to make her sixth Olympic team, found her new partner at the end of 2018 when she joined 2016 Olympian Brooke Sweat. The pair made a statement in 2019 when it won the FIVB four-star event in Jingjiang, China.
Younger women’s teams are benefitting from the NCAA’s adoption of beach volleyball, and they are making strong pushes prior to the Tokyo Games. The pairs of Kelly Claes/Sarah Sponcil and Kelley Larsen/Emily Stockman have achieved success on the international stage.
On the men’s side, three-time Olympian Jake Gibb and newcomer Taylor Crabb lead the U.S. teams in Olympic points thanks to a gold-medal win at the four-star in Chetumal, Mexico, to end 2019. Dalhausser and Lucena are in second, but still need to compete in two more events to be eligible.
Newcomers Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb (Taylor’s brother) are in third place among U.S. teams. They came together in late 2018 after Bourne recovered from a long illness, and they have surprised themselves by winning the FIVB three-star event in Quinzhou, China and finishing fourth at the 2019 world championships.
Updated on July 19, 2020. For more information, contact the sport press officer here.