The schedule for the pool stage of the beach volleyball tournament at Beijing 2008 was confirmed by the FIVB today. Here are the American matches and results:

August 9, 2008
WIN - 18:00 Branagh-Youngs USA vs. Kadijk R.-Mooren NED (Women's Pool E) - results
LOSS - 21:00 Rogers-Dalhausser USA vs. Samoilovs-Plavins LAT (Men's Pool B) - results

August 10,2008
WIN - 9:00 Walsh-May-Treanor USA vs. Teru Saiki-Kusuhara JPN (Women's Pool B) - results
WIN - 21:00 Gibb-Rosenthal USA vs. Boersma E.-Ronnes NED (Men's Pool F) - results

August 11, 2008
WIN - 18:00 Branagh-Youngs USA vs. Pohl-Rau GER - results
WIN - 22:00 Rogers-Dalhausser USA vs. Heyer-Heuscher SUI - results

August 12, 2008
WIN - 9:00 Walsh-May-Treanor USA vs. Fern. Grasset-Larrea Peraza CUB - results
WIN - 22:00 Brink-Dieckmann Ch. GER vs. Gibb-Rosenthal USA - results

August 13, 2008
WIN - 9:00 Rogers-Dalhausser USA vs. Conde-Baracetti ARG - results
WIN - 22:00 Branagh-Youngs USA vs. Esteves Ribalta-M. Crespo CUB - results

August 14, 2008
WIN - 9:00 Walsh-May-Treanor USA vs. Hakedal-Torlen NOR - results
WIN - 19:00 Gibb-Rosenthal USA vs. Asahi-Shiratori JPN - results

photo: China (obviously)

If you haven't already found it, here is NBC's page for beach volleyball coverage at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Here's a broad competition schedule, and you can get a customized TV schedule for your area.

Widgets

There's a plethora of widgets available for the inevitable flood of Olympic data, like schedules and medals: http://www.nbcolympics.com/widgets/

Red Bull did this nice little video on Todd & Phil. Some cool shots of their training and Todd's family.

Update: Well, that sucks. Video was deleted.

Todd Rogers, a notable master of bending word definitions - "grovel", for instance - blogs about his and Phil Dalhausser's streak-ending "meeching" at the hands of fellow Olympians Gibb-Rosenthal yesterday.

Meech (Rogers) v.

To crush, work, destroy and utterly beat down.

Mich (Webster's) v.

To lie hid; to skulk; to act, or carry one's self, sneakingly. [Obs. or Colloq.] [Written also meach and meech.]

Weird. Sounds a lot like grovelling. But hey, if you're the world's best at something, I guess it's well within your right to introduce your own vocabulary. He is The Professor, after all.

Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh continued their long win streak with a win in Long Beach today, making it 18 straight tournament wins and 101 match wins in a row. They beat the feisty Boss-Ross, 21-14, 21-18.

The duo plan to skip next week's AVP San Diego Open to prepare for the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

According to the LA Times, beach volleyball Olympians aren't happy with USA Volleyball's preparation and organization of their trip to Beijing:

[Misty May] Treanor said she was "disgusted and ashamed" with the way USA Volleyball and Olympic officials have prepared and organized the U.S. beach volleyball team's trip to Beijing to compete in this year's Games.

...

"Nothing has ever changed with USA Volleyball," [Elaine] Youngs said. "Every single Olympics is so unorganized, the people they hire are incompetent, they have no experience."

Damn. Not like EY is known for censoring herself, but when Misty May is going on the record like that, you know something is pretty effed up.

Apparently, there's talk of a split and formation of an independent beach volleyball federation. To me, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea. As it is now, beach kinda seems like the red-headed stepchild over at USA Volleyball, at least the way they're represented on their site and in press releases and such.

If it's to grow as a sport, it seems to me there needs to be a federation with beach volley as its top priority.

Read the story at latimes.com

Four Beijing '08 Olympians met on the sands of Long Beach today, and it was the underdogs who walked away with the victory.

Sean Rosenthal nabbed his first California victory today with partner Jake Gibb, beating the world's top-ranked team of Phil Dalhausser & Todd Rogers in just two games, 21-14, 21-14.

Dalhausser & Rogers had an uncharacteristic match full of unforced errors and Gibb-Rosy were quick to capitalize, at one point scoring a run of 14 points to 1.

The big question now will be how this loss affects Rogers-Dalhausser's confidence going into the Beijing Olympics. They had been riding high on a win streak of 37 games and 8 AVP season wins, so being able to shrug off this loss will be important.


On a technical note, the broadcast on NBC today was totally FUBAR, complete with total blackouts, freezes at critical moments, and lots of switching back and forth from HD to Craptastic quality. And now that I think about it, it was totally jacked up last week, too. Only on NBC, and only during the AVP broadcast.

WTF is up with that? I might actually have to start going to tournaments again.

Who would have thought?

http://allafrica.com/stories/200807220114.html

Mark Williams notched his first tournament win in his 8 years on the AVP Tour, winning with partner Stein Metzger today at the AVP Crocs Slam Boulder.

The duo, newly-minted in 2008, defeated Anthony Medel/Fred Sousa, 21-17, 21-15.

The US team of Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs clinched the #2 Olympic berth today with a silver medal at the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam.

The third-ranked American hopefuls, Jen Boss and April Ross, were eliminated early in the tournament and won't be able to make up the points gap.

Read more at nbcolympics.com

photo: fivb