Professional Seashore
August 9, 2024
There was just one ingredient lacking from Duda Lisboa’s resume.
She’d gained a World Championship. Gained a Gstaad cowbell. Gained each accolade there was to win — Rookie, Server, Most Excellent, Greatest Group. All of them.
Even when she was simply a teen, taking part in in an period that included prime April Ross and just-out-of-her-prime Laura Ludwig, she was voted by her friends at the very best participant on this planet, in each 2018 and 2019 and once more in 2023.
But she hadn’t gained an Olympic gold.
No Brazilian feminine, actually, had claimed an Olympic gold medal since Sandra Piles and Jackie Silva did so in 1996, profitable an all-Brazilian ultimate.
Duda wasn’t even born.
It’s becoming, then, that the primary Brazilian Olympic gold medal of her lifetime has been gained by her and Ana Patricia Silva, beating Canadians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson on Friday night in Paris, 26-24, 12-21, 15-9.
Solely Ana Patricia, Duda’s greatest pal and longtime associate, has been capable of match the torrid tempo of the 26-year-old Brazilian defender. After they have been youngsters, they have been world-beaters. If there was a match to win, they gained it. Gained the youth Olympics precisely 10 years in the past in Nanjing, China. Gained the Below 21 World Championships two years after that. And once more the 12 months after that.
They break up for an Olympic quad, Duda turning to top-of-the-line to ever play the sport in Agatha Bednarczuk, Ana Patricia to Rebecca Cavalcanti. They each certified for the Tokyo Video games however, regardless of profitable a mixed 25 medals within the course of, neither made the rostrum within the Olympics.
For a stretch, it appeared Paris might have portended an identical consequence.
They have been essentially the most adorned crew of the three-year stretch between the Video games, profitable 9 golds, together with the 2022 World Championships in Rome. But 2024 supplied an uncharacteristic lapse in medals. Since partnering again up in 2022, they hadn’t gone a stretch of three tournaments with no podium a single time — till the three occasions main into Paris, which featured a fifth in Espinho, fourth in Ostrava, ninth in Gstaad. That ninth was their worst end in a match in two years, courting again to the 2022 Ostrava Elite16.
Maybe that’s what ignited their dominant run by way of Paris. Maybe it was a easy regression to the imply. In any occasion, what occurred subsequent was classic Duda and Ana Patricia: 5 straight sweeps to earn a berth into the medal rounds. A wonderful three-set semifinal win over Australia’s Mariafe Artacho and Taliqua Clancy (20-22, 21-15, 15-12) to place them right into a ultimate towards a Canadian crew on its third life.
A Canadian crew that had beforehand overwhelmed Ana Patricia and Duda in Doha within the first match of the season.
Humana-Paredes had gone on a podcast previous to that season-opening occasion, and he or she was requested which crew she thought-about her largest rivals.
“It was them,” she mentioned of Ana Patricia and Duda, “as a result of they have been the one crew we hadn’t overwhelmed. We went in with a little bit little bit of gusto and we needed that.”
They got here out with gusto within the gold medal match, too, establishing an 8-2 lead within the opening set, saving their greatest seashore volleyball of the Olympic Video games for when it mattered most. But one doesn’t turn out to be the world No. 1 on accident, and shortly the world No. 1 type of Ana Patricia and Duda descended upon Eiffel Tower Stadium.
Ana Patricia header digs. Duda bombs into the angle. Ana Patricia blocks. Duda digs and transition kills.
The Canadian lead disappeared in a cloud of Brazilian defensive art work, and 24 factors after taking place six, it was all tied at 17-17.
The truth that Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson recovered sufficient to earn a set level is a testomony to their psychological resolve. It wasn’t sufficient. Not within the first set, anyway, as Ana Patricia and Duda closed a spectacular comeback, 26-24.
Tortured genius is a phrase Wealthy Lambourne usually makes use of when describing Ana Patricia and Duda. When they’re at their greatest, no crew on this planet can cease them. Any proof one would possibly want may be discovered within the finals of the Brasilia Elite16, by which, strive as Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth would possibly, they couldn’t contact the Brazilians.
But from time to time, that unstoppable drive is halted not by the cliched immovable object, however themselves. The second set was a show of the mercurial facet of Ana Patricia and Duda, a 12-21 head-scratcher that despatched the ultimate into three units for the primary time in ladies’s Olympic seashore volleyball historical past.
Which model of Ana Patricia and Duda would come out of the field? The World Champs or those who have been mopped up within the second set?
In entrance of a vocal sea of Brazilian followers, singing and chanting and waving their flags, it was the previous. They jumped out to a 10-5 lead and held quick as Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes tried to mount a comeback. Following an ace from Wilkerson and a swing from Ana Patricia, each of whom celebrated with no need to cover their emotion, the blockers jawed at one another by way of the online, needing to be separated by a cadre of referees.
It was Olympic seashore volleyball at its best, two of the very best blockers on this planet making an attempt to sway an important match of their careers in any manner they may.
However on the day’s finish, Brazil has one thing no different federation can declare.
It has a Duda.
Sure, it was Ana Patricia who delivered the ultimate blow, a swing off the palms of Wilkerson to clinch the gold medal. But it surely has been — and all the time will probably be — Duda who has been the rock of this crew, this federation, this seashore volleyball world, since they have been youngsters in Nanjing, China.
Ten years later, it’s no youth Olympic gold medal they’ll be taking dwelling, however the true deal.
The long-awaited gold medal of Duda Lisboa, Ana Patricia Silva, and a Brazilian fanbase who will probably be singing and dancing and waving their flags till the solar goes down and again up once more, maybe till the subsequent Olympic quad begins, and it’s time to do it another time.
Brandie Wilkerson, Melissa Humana-Paredes make Canadian Olympic historical past
So far as making historical past goes, Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes had already performed that previous to Friday’s gold medal match. In coming again to beat Switzerland’s Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli in Thursday’s semifinal, they assured themselves a medal — the primary ever for a Canadian ladies’s seashore crew, and first general since 1996, when John Youngster and Mark Heese gained bronze in Atlanta.
Will probably be a silver, their third such medal this season, including onto silvers in Doha and Ostrava.
Nina Brunner, Tanja Huberli win second straight Swiss Olympic bronze
The phrases of Anouk Verge-Depre, following her and Joana Mader’s Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo, have been perpetually etched into seashore volleyball lore. Requested, after their win over Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova to clinch the primary Swiss Olympic seashore volleyball medal in historical past, if Switzerland was now a seashore volleyball nation she confirmed that sure, sure it’s.
Within the wake of a remarkably profitable Paris Olympic Video games for Switzerland, it’s unimaginable to argue the rest.
Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli tacked on one other bronze medal for Switzerland on Friday night, sweeping Australia’s Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho, 21-17, 21-15. It’s the primary Olympic medal for Brunner and Huberli, two-time European Champs who competed of their second Olympic Video games.
