B E ACH VO L L E Y B A L L Shouldering the burden
Kerri Walsh Jennings passes her first big test with April Ross to win the FIVB Rio Grand Slam less than six months removed from shoulder surgery by Jon Hastings • Photos: FIVB
Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross returned to the court in March and went undefeated at the FIVB Rio Grand Slam to move into a solid Olympic qualification position.
KERRI WALSH JENNINGS SHOULD leave her shoulder to medical science to pos- sibly discover the secrets to its resiliency. Her heart is another story. That’s reserved for eternal optimists. Less than six months from her fifth surgery on her right shoulder that abruptly ended her 2015 season and threatened to end her quest for an unprecedented fourth Olympic gold medal, Walsh Jennings did her rehab and never stopped believing. She passionately returned to the beach to team with April Ross to capture the $800,000 Rio Grand Slam, culminating with a podium ceremony on March 13. That made a statement to the rest of the world about the hierarchy in women’s beach volleyball, which is now unresolved after a year of Brazil- ian dominance in 2015. Walsh Jennings and Ross defeated Poland’s
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Kinga Kolsinska and Monika Brzostek 2-0 (21- 15, 21-13) in only 31 minutes in an Olympic dress rehearsal that left the Brazilian teams shut out on their home sand for the first time in 25 previous FIVB events on fabled Copacabana Beach. It was the first podium placement for
Walsh Jennings since she and Ross picked up a silver medal last summer in the Long Beach Grand Slam. Walsh Jennings spent most of that event attacking left handed. The injury, a dislocation that first hap-
pened in May of 2015 at the FIVB Grand Slam in Moscow, put a big question mark to her plans for a podium appearance in Rio. Healthy, Walsh Jennings and Ross are clearly the top U.S. team and one of the favorites for gold in Brazil in August. Olympic qualification criteria, however, put the duo in
a precarious position since they needed to play in 12 FIVB events to become eligible for one of the 16 spots awarded via the FIVB Tour (eight more come though the FIVB Beach Volleyball Continental Cup). The victory in Rio earned them 800 points and they have moved ahead of Jen Kessy and Emily Day in the qualification chase (see chart), but still need to compete in four more events prior to the June 13 deadline. Barring another injury setback, playing in the mini- mum number events required should not be an issue with three FIVB Grand Slams and several opens on the slate prior to the deadline.. “My injury was only a positive,” Walsh
Jennings said during a press conference on Copacabana shortly after her 126th career victory. “It hurt my heart and the second time I got hurt especially was kind of scary because
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My injury was only a positive. It hurt my heart and the second time I got hurt especially was kind of scary because it was like where are we in this process after you work so hard? But it helped us. We needed something to help us understand each other
and work out the core of each other and I feel like we got rid of the (questions) and found the core of the partnership. 38 | VOLLEYBALLUSA • Digital Issue at
usavolleyball.org/mag
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