What’s subsequent?
Jordan Larson and Micha Hancock are recovering. They’re OK, fortunately, however the two USA girls’s silver-medalists have 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 need to 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 aspect, 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 during which they passengers hit a pole.
Larson confirmed a nasty bruise on the skin of her eye, however Hancock’s was far worse. Her eye was discolored and swollen shut within the picture she posted on Instagram apparently from a hospital room.
“Alright guys, right here I’m. Automotive wreck after Paris 2024 concluded. My Uber driver hit a pole on the way in which to the resort after an evening out with the workforce,” Hancock stated in an Instagram story. “Fortunately @gov1007 (Larson) was there with me. She took care of me. Issues occur quick guys … care for yourselves. Put on your seatbelts. Undoubtedly strolling away from this glad to be alive. Have some accidents however ought to get better inside months.”
Larson posted, she stated, so when she returned to her teaching job at Nebraska this week folks would know what occurred and she or he wouldn’t need to 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 this time present hosts on the coach. Right here’s a hyperlink should you haven’t seen it. Don’t count on a lot, however any publicity on that degree for our groups is nice publicity.
They later went to Wall Avenue to the inventory market.
Now they disperse and, as Poulter stated — little doubt talking for a lot of of her teammates — she seems ahead to not leaping for some time.
Plummer, for one, will get married subsequent month. Inside a month after the USA girls gained gold in Tokyo in 2021, Drews, Robinson Cook dinner and Larson obtained married.
Talking of weddings, USA males’s official alternate Kyle Dagostino can also 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 have been excited to be going residence to satisfy their new puppies, Golden Retrievers from the identical litter.
Kiraly on post-Olympics and the longer term
What’s subsequent for the coach, who was an assistant in 2012 and has now guided the workforce by way of three Olympiads?
“I must take some time off,” Kiraly stated with amusing about an hour after the gold-medal match. “A little bit spouse time, a little bit household time. Most likely do some glamping. I might say tenting, however we like to tug a journey trailer and have a tough shell between us and the bears.
“Numerous my household was right here they usually had a good time. They actually loved town and the folks of Paris and it’s been a fantastic expertise. I didn’t go to see every other occasions dwell however definitely 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 chance,” he replied. “We’ve got some issues to determine. USA Volleyball has some issues to determine. We’ve got our nice CEO on his manner out,” Kiraly stated, nodding to Davis, “ending up on the finish of September. There’s a search happening proper now and from my greatest understanding USA Volleyball is doing the smart factor and ready to get that checked off earlier than they determine 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 believe that’s a smart transfer and the appropriate order to permit the brand new CEO to be a major a part of that course of.”
Davis, by the way in which, is turning into the CEO of USA Water Polo.
The 13: Not fairly however welcoming and fantastic
To cowl the Olympics, you first apply on your media credential. As soon as accepted, 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 taking place 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 the complete time was my spouse, who got here with me the primary week. In my resort have been another overseas 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 recent eggs each morning, made probably the most inventive pastries, put out recent fruit, and all the time had a “Bonjour!” and smile for you.
If you walked out of the entrance door of the resort on avenue d’Italie, every thing you wanted was proper there. Subsequent door was a boulangerie, that had unbelievable sandwiches, about 18 inches of baguette filled with the very best 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’ve got ever seen, blocks of tables the place you should purchase something from hen 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. Possibly 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. Huge occasions like that aren’t for me, so I watched these spectacles and plenty of sports activities on TV. I hit seaside volleyball a few instances and I obtained to water polo on an off-USA volleyball day (watching with, of all folks, Jamie Davis).
Whereas Paris did a fantastic job, these have been nonetheless the strolling Olympics. Issues have been fairly spaced out and, sadly, I performed with ache the final two weeks. After concerning 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 doable and, above all, not pop an Achilles in Paris.
So, extra good things concerning 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.
(Facet notice: I’ve been fortunate by way of a five-decade sportswriting profession to cowl fairly a bit. The lads’s gold-medal last between France and Poland might need been probably the most electrical ambiance of any sporting occasion I’ve ever been to. The French embrace their groups in such a giant manner and when the group sings “La Marseillaise,” the nationwide anthem, it’s like nothing else.)
The bus might typically be an journey. One time I obtained off a cease early and limp-walked the remainder of the way in which as a result of I didn’t need to be there for what I figured was a struggle that was going to interrupt out. Between two girls.
The tram was probably the most attention-grabbing folks watching, typically was a bit too crowded, and sometimes riders have 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 obtained my ice baggage stuffed each day so I might ice the Achilles.
Abdul, a giant man who’s so pleasant and who labored the entrance desk, is from Senegal and speaks not less than 4 languages, together with, fortunately, fluent English. He was so useful. I left him one among my VolleyballMag.com XXL T-shirts.
Then there was our protection. We requested for 3 credentials however obtained 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 on daily basis for nearly three weeks to churn out story after story.
(Facet notice: The 2 coaches, Kiraly and Speraw, have been all the time greater than gracious with their time after matches. So have been the USA gamers, one thing that would not be stated about some gamers from different nations who typically simply walked previous and ignored their nation’s media clamoring for quotes. The USA gamers have been merely nice to speak to after each match, win or lose.)
Travis crushed in on the seaside reporting. I’d prefer to suppose my indoors protection was fairly stable. And, because of all of you, we had file 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 either side. As many as 4 or 5 gamers on every workforce are doubtless completed with worldwide play. USA Volleyball not solely will get a brand new CEO, however might have new coaches and may 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 don’t know the place I’ll be staying, however I wager the breakfast gained’t be nearly as good as Bruno’s.
