What’s subsequent?
Jordan Larson and Micha Hancock are recovering. They’re OK, fortunately, however the two USA girls’s silver-medalists had been in a automotive crash earlier than leaving Paris and are fairly banged up.
Karch Kiraly, unsure if he’ll be again as the ladies’s coach, goes “glamping.”
USA males’s gamers have simply a few weeks earlier than they must report back to their European professional groups.
It by no means stops.
This weekend, all 4 USA Olympic seaside groups will play within the AVP Manhattan Seaside Open: Miles Partain and Andy Benesh and Chase Budinger and Miles Evans on the lads’s facet, and Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes and Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss on the ladies’s.
And the NCAA girls’s season begins in 13 days.
All that and a private recap of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Hancock, Larson OK after crash
Larson, who simply completed her fourth Olympics, and Hancock, who was the official alternate who performed in two matches when she changed Lauren Carlini, posted on Instagram the place they displayed some fairly vicious bruises, particularly Hancock after the Uber by which they passengers hit a pole.
Larson confirmed a foul bruise on the surface of her eye, however Hancock’s was far worse. Her eye was discolored and swollen shut within the photograph she posted on Instagram apparently from a hospital room.
“Alright guys, right here I’m. Automobile wreck after Paris 2024 concluded. My Uber driver hit a pole on the best way to the resort after an evening out with the staff,” Hancock stated in an Instagram story. “Fortunately @gov1007 (Larson) was there with me. She took care of me. Issues occur quick guys … deal with yourselves. Put on your seatbelts. Undoubtedly strolling away from this comfortable to be alive. Have some accidents however ought to recuperate inside months.”
Larson posted, she stated, so when she returned to her teaching job at Nebraska this week folks would know what occurred and he or she wouldn’t must repeat the story.
“Issues undoubtedly might have been worse,” Larson stated on Instagram.
Each gamers are becoming a member of the brand new LOVB professional league. Hancock will play for LOVB Houston and Larson goes to LOVB Omaha.
The others went to NYC
That included Chiaka Ogbogu, Annie Drews, Justine Wong-Orantes, Haleigh Washington, Kathryn Plummer, Lauren Carlini, Avery Skinner, Jordan Thompson, Kelsey Robinson Cook dinner and Dana Rettke.
Setter Jordyn Poulter and males’s gamers Matt Anderson and Taylor Averill joined the At present present hosts on the coach. Right here’s a hyperlink in case you haven’t seen it. Don’t count on a lot, however any publicity on that degree for our groups is sweet publicity.
They later went to Wall Road to the inventory market.
Now they disperse and, as Poulter stated — little doubt talking for a lot of of her teammates — she appears to be like ahead to not leaping for some time.
Plummer, for one, will get married subsequent month. Inside a month after the USA girls received gold in Tokyo in 2021, Drews, Robinson Cook dinner and Larson bought married.
Talking of weddings, USA males’s official alternate Kyle Dagostino can be getting married subsequent month after which heads to Berlin, the place he’ll play for Recycling Volleys.
Dagostino was with the 2 USA girls’s unofficial alternates within the Charles de Gaulle airport Monday morning, libero Morgan Hentz and center Anna Stevenson Corridor. Hentz will play Athletes Unlimted this fall after which return to the Professional Volleyball Federation’s Atlanta Vibe, and Corridor will play for LOVB Madison with Drews and Carlini. Hentz and Corridor served as observe gamers in Paris. They had been excited to be going residence to fulfill their new puppies, Golden Retrievers from the identical litter.
Kiraly on post-Olympics and the long run
What’s subsequent for the coach, who was an assistant in 2012 and has now guided the staff by three Olympiads?
“I have to take some time off,” Kiraly stated with fun about an hour after the gold-medal match. “Just a little spouse time, a little bit household time. Most likely do some glamping. I might say tenting, however we like to drag a journey trailer and have a tough shell between us and the bears.
“Quite a lot of my household was right here and so they had a good time. They actually loved the town and the folks of Paris and it’s been an incredible expertise. I didn’t go to see another occasions dwell however actually France placed on a heck of a Video games.”
Whereas we spoke, outgoing USA CEO Jamie Davis stood alongside.
I requested Kiraly if he’s coming again because the coach.
“I might say that’s a risk,” he replied. “We’ve some issues to determine. USA Volleyball has some issues to determine. We’ve our nice CEO on his manner out,” Kiraly stated, nodding to Davis, “ending up on the finish of September. There’s a search occurring proper now and from my finest understanding USA Volleyball is doing the clever factor and ready to get that checked off earlier than they work out different issues, like who will coach the ladies and who will coach the lads and if folks like me and John return.”
John is John Speraw. He, too, was an Olympics assistant earlier than taking up as head coach of the lads main into 2016.
“I feel that’s a clever transfer and the suitable order to permit the brand new CEO to be a big a part of that course of.”
Davis, by the best way, is turning into the CEO of USA Water Polo.
The 13: Not fairly however welcoming and fantastic
To cowl the Olympics, you first apply to your media credential. As soon as permitted, you then undergo the native committee to get housing. I assume a lot bigger and extra worldwide media organizations get to decide on a resort within the heart of issues, nearer to the vacationer sights in additional occurring areas.
In my case, I selected the Amiral Lodge within the thirteenth Arrondissement.
I lucked out.
The Amiral has 50 rooms and is in a neighborhood the place on a regular basis folks have on a regular basis lives. It borders Chinatown and that turned a restaurant refuge for me after I wasn’t at Le Globe. The one American I talked to your entire time was my spouse, who got here with me the primary week. In my resort had been another international journalists, together with a contingent from Italy and one other from Portugal. There have been additionally some extremely match guys from Spain and Portugal, policemen introduced in to work the Olympics.
All of us would see one another most each morning at “petit-déjeuner,” the French time period for breakfast that was overseen by Bruno. Bruno was the nicest man and he and his workers cooked contemporary eggs each morning, made essentially the most artistic pastries, put out contemporary fruit, and all the time had a “Bonjour!” and smile for you.
Once you walked out of the entrance door of the resort on avenue d’Italie, all the things you wanted was proper there. Subsequent door was a boulangerie, that had unbelievable sandwiches, about 18 inches of baguette full of the perfect stuff. Every morning I might get one to pack and take with me to volleyball. For 4.90 Euros (about $5.37USD) it was superior.
Each Thursday and Sunday mornings there’s a market with extra fruit and veggies than you may have ever seen, blocks of tables the place you should buy something from rooster to watermelon to toilet provides to clothes. It was a spectacle in itself.
One other 20 yards down the sidewalk from the Amiral was the aforementioned Le Globe Cafe. I solely ate there about 9 instances. Perhaps 10. It was open early, it was open late, and there have been instances I felt like Norm in Cheers after I walked over and took a seat at one of many sidewalk tables.
“Un IPA, s’il vous plait.” Nice meals, too.
I didn’t go to the opening or closing ceremonies. Massive occasions like that aren’t for me, so I watched these spectacles and loads of sports activities on TV. I hit seaside volleyball a few instances and I bought to water polo on an off-USA volleyball day (watching with, of all folks, Jamie Davis).
Whereas Paris did an incredible job, these had been nonetheless the strolling Olympics. Issues had been fairly spaced out and, sadly, I performed with ache the final two weeks. After in regards to the fifth day, my left Achilles tendon swelled up and it was, and nonetheless is, fairly annoyingly painful. I made it a precedence to not stroll quick or too far when potential and, above all, not pop an Achilles in Paris.
So, extra good things in regards to the Amiral.
Proper outdoors the door was the bus cease the place I might catch the 47 and take it two stops to Porte d’ Italie, the place I might get on the T3a tram. The tram took about 20 minutes and stopped about 200 meters from the doorway to South Paris Area 1, the ten,000-seat indoor volleyball venue.
(Aspect observe: I’ve been fortunate by a five-decade sportswriting profession to cowl fairly a bit. The boys’s gold-medal last between France and Poland may need been essentially the most electrical environment of any sporting occasion I’ve ever been to. The French embrace their groups in such an enormous manner and when the group sings “La Marseillaise,” the nationwide anthem, it’s like nothing else.)
The bus might generally be an journey. One time I bought off a cease early and limp-walked the remainder of the best way as a result of I didn’t wish to be there for what I figured was a battle that was going to interrupt out. Between two girls.
The tram was essentially the most fascinating folks watching, generally was a bit too crowded, and infrequently riders had been watching different Olympics occasions on their telephones.
Again to that sore Achilles. The resort didn’t have ice machines like we’re used to right here, however Helena of the Amiral, who’s from Sri Lanka and so pleasant, made positive I bought my ice baggage crammed every day so I might ice the Achilles.
Abdul, an enormous man who’s so pleasant and who labored the entrance desk, is from Senegal and speaks at the least 4 languages, together with, fortunately, fluent English. He was so useful. I left him certainly one of my VolleyballMag.com XXL T-shirts.
Then there was our protection. We requested for 3 credentials however bought one. So … Travis Mewhirter, 9 time zones behind me in Hermosa Seaside, and Stacey Faris, our director of ops within the Japanese time zone, and I all labored collectively each day for nearly three weeks to churn out story after story.
(Aspect observe: The 2 coaches, Kiraly and Speraw, had been all the time greater than gracious with their time after matches. So had been the USA gamers, one thing that would not be stated about some gamers from different international locations who generally simply walked previous and ignored their nation’s media clamoring for quotes. The USA gamers had been merely nice to speak to after each match, win or lose.)
Travis crushed in on the seaside reporting. I’d wish to assume my indoors protection was fairly stable. And, because of all of you, we had document VolleyballMag web page views for 3 weeks.
And why not? Such compelling tales, whilst our USA seaside groups got here residence with out medals for the primary time ever and our indoors each medaled. This was the top of an period on each side. As many as 4 or 5 gamers on every staff are possible completed with worldwide play. USA Volleyball not solely will get a brand new CEO, however might have new coaches and could have very totally different indoor Olympic groups heading into Los Angeles 2028.
The volleyball in 4 years is within the Honda Middle in Anaheim. I do not know the place I’ll be staying, however I guess the breakfast received’t be nearly as good as Bruno’s.
