By Rohith Nair
(Reuters) – Beach volleyball has had some iconic venues at the Olympics but nothing will probably beat the foot of the Eiffel Tower, where the United States will look to extend their streak of winning a medal at every Games since the sport was introduced in 1996.
The Champ de Mars in Paris will host a temporary outdoor arena with one of the world’s most spectacular monuments serving as a backdrop for the 48 pairs in men’s and women’s beach volleyball.
That is where the newly-crowned world champions Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng, who dethroned Brazil, will look to claim their first Olympic medal and follow in the footsteps of American greats such as Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings.
May-Treanor and Jennings won three consecutive gold medals from 2004 to 2012, with the latter adding a bronze medal to her glittering resume in 2016.
Cheng and Hughes were the first pair to seal qualification for the Olympics when they won the world title in Mexico after teaming up in 2022 following unsuccessful stints with other partners.
Both were born in California and played together in school and college — getting 103 consecutive match wins at the University of Southern California — but they went their separate ways in 2018.
Although Cheng qualified for the Tokyo Games, where she was knocked out in the last 16, Hughes did not when her partner Summer Ross injured her back in 2019.
It was Cheng who had a “gut feeling” and contacted Hughes with the prospect of pairing up. Following a long chat at a coffee shop in Long Beach, they eventually teamed up again with the goal of winning gold in Paris.
“It was four years of being our own people and learning about ourselves and figuring out what kind of volleyball we want to play,” Cheng told Olympics.com.
“It was perfect timing when we sat down. Our styles of play just naturally, individually, formed the chemistry.
“We’re both at the same stages of life and on the same page with a lot of things. And I think that’s just helped us fight hard together and fight for each other on and off the court, which I think is really important.”
In the men’s draw, the Czech Republic’s Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner surprised even themselves when they won their first world title last year to qualify for the Olympics where they will have a chance at redemption.
A positive COVID-19 test in Tokyo forced the Czech pair to forfeit their first group match which eventually prevented them from qualifying for the knockout stage.
But the pair, who got together in 2016, gave their country a first world title with a nail-biting victory in the final against Norway which they hope put the sport on the map back home.
“For sure this success has raised some awareness about us outside the ‘sports bubble’. There are not so many world champions in the Czech Republic, so that for sure helped,” Perusic said.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; editing by Clare Fallon)
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