Back on the Podium - Brasilia, E16
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Yes, we really do have beaches in Michigan!
Monday morning when our 2:40 am alarm started screaming at us to get up after only 2 hours of sleep we packed up our sand-stained swimsuits and silver medals without a complaint. Especially because we didn’t even think we were going to play in this event.
Flashback to 28 days before this tournament, we were highly considering the option to drop out of the event. The best and worst part about the flexibility of curating our own schedule was our worry to make the “wrong decision”. Would we still be saying this was a good idea to play if we were to have come back with another 9th place finish? We were battling with this choice because of the lengthy travel to Brazil, the weird 2-hour time change, the upcoming tournament schedule, Dengue Fever cases, and gauging our bodies. Nevertheless, hindsight is always 20/20 and we were flying out of South America with a silver medal, more Olympic points (even though we qualified these are still important for the seeding at the Olympics), and 6 more matches that we were able to learn from to grow our game.
Our amazing USA staff - Brian (data analyst), Scott & Emma (ATCs)
This Brazilian adventure started on Sunday morning, we landed in Brazil at 5 am and had to make it through the world’s most challenging airport, GRU. Luckily, we were able to get on the first bus off the plane to the customs line so we could catch the last of our 3-flight sequence to the capital of Brazil, Brasilia. We went exploring to find food and caffeine to keep us awake for the rest of the day. The city is set up like an airplane *google it* and very strange to navigate. There was desolate street after desolate street and then out of nowhere an entire street was filled with coffee shops, restaurants, grocery stores, and lots of apartments.
Our expectation of Brasilia was at ground zero from the intel of other athletes who were chatting about their reluctant return to Brasilia for an event this season. As we were downing caffeine, our foodie spotted a grocery store and we had to stop in and check it out. As she paced up and down each aisle, we decided to have a nice picnic by the water for dinner. Now, we realized that there were countless Brazilian steakhouses to visit, but the meat sweats at an 80+ degree practice/game is NOT fun. Just trust us. We did it last time we were in Brazil and we regretted it for the full hour of movement. The picnic by the water on Sunday night was a hit. There were so many people enjoying their meals along the water, the restaurants were full, the vibes were high, and were unable to keep our eyes open any longer so we went back to the hotel and passed out.
Monday morning rolled around quickly as we were in our ice box of a hotel room with only 1 sheet to keep us warm. Kristen was sore from being so cold and shivering all night to warm up. We took the morning shuttle to the venue and it was crazy busy. Brazil loves their beach volleyball and they brilliantly lined up the Elite 16 with a junior’s tournament. Following a very hot practice with the Latvians we indulged in our first Brazilian acai of the trip. It was 15 Brazilian Real or <$3 for a delicious acai cup, the only problem was choosing the toppings in Portuguese. Cue the first Brazilian that was very upset with my lack of Portuguese and made multiple negative comments about us Americans. So, we learned how to pronounce all the toppings by the end of the trip!
Our picnic set up!
After our practice and acai bowls, we took the elevator to the top of the hotel and found a very small gym for our workout. We found another American coach who was stressed about the 2024 schedule. It’s nice to know that everyone struggles with this decision and the plethora of possible scenarios. We were fortunate enough to have a facetime with Kerri Walsh-Jennings about our worry of the schedule and she was very reassuring that each Olympic race is so different. We couldn’t base our decisions on others. We just had to decide to go play or not and then make the most of the opportunity. Shortly after the lift we took an Uber to the grocery store which felt similar to bumper cars as we were weaving in and out with too many close calls to count. We decided picnic round 2 would be our dinner, but we opted for an indoor picnic to avoid the mosquitos carrying Dengue Fever. We were both itching our multiple mosquito bites after the first 24 hours in Brazil and just crossed our fingers that the Dengue Fever symptoms wouldn’t pop up!
Tuesday morning was slow and relaxed! We haven’t had many of these this year so we were trying to soak that in. Then we took a nice 30-minute walk through Brasilia with the incredible USA staff to a local cafe. It’s so nice to catch up with them outside of competition mode. They asked about how we were handling the pressure of the year, the competition, and the outside noise. It’s a challenge, but we signed up for this. We wanted this pressure and excitement and everything in between. Whenever it seems to be too much, Kristen and I remind each other that they are all good problems to be super busy. The friendly chatter quickly turned into competition when we walked back to the venue for an intense game of no-jump with the USA staff. It was so nice to have some fun on the court and just mess around before the tournament started. At treatment that night, another conversation popped up with the other players about what we were playing in or not playing in. It made us feel like we weren’t crazy for giving it so much of our attention before the wise words of Kerri calmed us down.
We had another morning of breakfast with our worldwide competitors, some of which had just flown back from an event in China and had a 42+ hour travel day. We returned to our year 1 ritual of taking the day off from practice before the main draw would begin. We walked through the airconditioned mall and cheered on our fellow USA men’s team of Theo and Trevor. Then, it was time to rest up for our first game the following morning.
We were just about to start our first game against Germany and we received our 10th message from our people telling us to “go have fun”. We certainly received the message that our first two tournaments were not us, they weren’t fun, losing is never fun so there needed to be a change! We won a 3-set battle with Germany in the dirty brown sand that had stained all of our clothes. Kristen repeatedly said “man, it’s nice to finally win the first one again”, of which I’m sure we can all agree. We went back to the hotel to lay with our legs up and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before our night match.
USA military cheering squad!
That night we were up against Brazil’s Barbara/Carol. We knew walking into that packed stadium of green and yellow that there wouldn’t be much support for us and the crowd would erupt each time Brazil would score a point. Kristen cheered for me and I cheered for Kristen and we had to ignore the rest. We were locked in and on a mission! I can’t explain the feeling where Kristen and I just share a brain and we seem to connect on all levels while on the court but we’re working towards getting to that point more often because it’s really fricken fun!
We went straight back to the hotel for a shower and dinner, remember when I said sand was dirty? The shower tile would turn brown every time I stepped foot in there! Unfortunately, after night games our bodies are hyped up and it makes it very tough to settle down to fall asleep. There was so much adrenaline and excitement and on top of that, Brazil thought it would be fun to work on a construction project at 11:30 pm. We were both tossing and turning until we finally downed some melatonin but that didn’t seem to help much. We were ready to play the third and final match of pool play but we had to wait until 6 pm again. The dark house, uprising, uber competitive Swiss pair were our opponents and we knew walking in to that game that they were on a mission to qualify in the tight Swiss Olympic race. We squeezed out a 3-set win and we were straight into the quarterfinals!
That night at dinner we sat with the Swiss pair we had just played to catch up on life. We typically sit alone and only hang out with each other but it was really refreshing to get to know other people that live a very similar life just in a different country. Luckily, both of the Swiss players speak 5+ languages and it was a great chat.
The perk of topping pool was one less match but we still needed to get out to the courts and watch our potential competition that morning. Right before our quarterfinal match against China, was the match up of Brazil against the Netherlands. There were so many fans, horns, noise machines, clappers, and screaming fans. There was so much ruckus and so many noises flying around that Kristen and I were blown away. On top of all the craziness my OGIO bag was being protected by a bee, he wouldn’t get off the zipper. Our selfless USA staff member took off his shoe to capture the bee and move it safely to the edge of the court. Who else would do that? We are blessed with the best USA staff members and as Kristen pointed out on social media, true unsung heroes.
The game against China we were dialed in even with all the Brazilian distractions! We were in tunnel vision mode and nothing else mattered. We took a spot in the semis in two sets and went back for dinner. We were eating with the Swiss girls again and they were telling us about how they had no more clean clothes. They weren’t planning on going to play in Brazil and they didn’t bring enough clothes to cover all 9 of their matches. What a life on the road?
SUNDAY! We had two games no matter what so we dumped everything we had into them. One win which was masked by a loss in the end. The Swiss match in the semi-finals went to 3…. again. So sorry! On the bus ride back to the hotel Duda and other Brazilians were teaching us some Portuguese. We also informed them on how to pronounce our names correctly as they thought it was pronounced Klotch and Noose.
Cheers!
After a little recovery and a peanut butter jelly sandwich we were shuttled back to the venue for the gold medal match against Duda/AP of Brazil. The line to get into the venue area was wrapped around the street and through to the parking lot. The stadium was packed, we were warming up and people were yelling to get our attention for a photo or signature. We made our way into the stadium and all the past Brazilian beach volleyball Olympians were proudly announced and lined up on the sand. This delayed the game about 20 minutes and Duda/AP were arguing with the staff that it was ridiculous to make us wait that long without more warmup time. Meanwhile, Kristen and I were taking in the excitement and joy that Brazil showed for this game.
We were walking into a lion’s den. The Brazilians were ruthless and loud. But I had Nuss and she had me *& our 10-person cheering section including the USA military men and women that spent their off day watching us*. This was the most ridiculous, passionate, loud crowd that I had ever played in front of. We had a solid start and let it go with strings of bad. We were screaming at each other to say who would take the middle ball because it was so loud and nearly impossible to hear each other.
To end with a loss never feels good and almost makes us focus on the loss of the last game instead of the second-place finish. Someone asked us post-match if it was better to lose the gold medal match and get silver or win the bronze medal match. We simultaneously stated losing and taking a silver medal would still be better. We went directly from the podium celebration to the Brazilian steakhouse with the USA crew to reminisce about the week in Brazil and the crazy lives that we live.
By: Taryn Kloth
