The Official Site of Misty May

Tue, Mar 11th 2008, 16:31

Olympics spice up coming AVP season

Officially, the chase for gold is on and the mining starts in two weeks in Australia.

But among beach volleyball players on the AVP Tour, the race to qualify for the Olympics began not-so-subtly last summer, when players normally laid back and open with each other cut conversations to little more than “Hey, what up, dude?”

“I actually noticed a change last year once the Olympics qualification started,” Jake Gibb said. “You maybe stopped sharing as many scouting reports, but you still want USA to do well. It’s a crazy little thing.

“You’re raised rooting for USA and it’s just in you. You want us all to do well. No matter what, two teams are going to go and they’re going to be two good teams.

“It’s just not quite as open.”

The AVP Tour schedule was announced on Tuesday, and it’s a new-and-improved format that will conclude with the final Crocs Cup event at the Manhattan Beach Open Sept. 19-21.

But three men’s teams and three women’s teams are in the thick of the race to qualify for the Beijing Olympics in August. Only two from each side will go.

Let the intrigue begin. Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor, the top-ranked team in the world, are all but in, which is a good thing because it remains to be seen how Walsh recovers from offseason shoulder surgery.