Olympic Beach: USA off the podium for first time in history after Benesh-Partain loss

Andy Benesh and Miles Partain picked the hill — or sword, to use their parlance — they would die on in the Paris Olympic Games. It’s a good word choice, sword. Their style of play — high passes, an on-two and jump-setting frequency that would make even Sweden blush — is high risk, high reward, […]

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Andy Benesh and Miles Partain picked the hill — or sword, to use their parlance — they would die on in the Paris Olympic Games.

It’s a good word choice, sword. Their style of play — high passes, an on-two and jump-setting frequency that would make even Sweden blush — is high risk, high reward, the difference between winning and losing roughly as razor thin as the blade of the sword Benesh declared they’d live and die on in Paris.

On Wednesday evening in Paris, in a quarterfinal match against Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan, they proudly exited the Olympics on that very sword, losing 14-21, 16-21.

The score is indicative of how the match went. Qatar, as they have been all week, was dominant, borderline perfect. Cherif and Ahmed hit just eight errors to the USA’s 16, tallied just one service error to the USA’s six, dug eight balls to the USA’s five, and notched 26 kills to the USA’s 22.

There is no losing with those numbers.

Yet for Partain and Benesh, there will be no regrets. No what-ifs.

This is the style that got them to Paris. This is the style that pushed them into the quarterfinals after a resounding 21-17, 21-18 sweep over Italy’s Sam Cottafava and Paolo Nicolai. This is what they’ll be doing, as Partain said after a pool play win over Brazil’s George Wanderley and Andre Loyola, “for eternity.”

Sometimes the sword tips slightly in the wrong direction.

It was an intriguing matchup coming in. Cherif and Ahmed have one of the best track records against Sweden’s David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig among any team in the world. Every matchup between the two has gone three sets, including the match of these Olympic Games, a 20-18 three-set win for Qatar. Cherif is mobile enough to track the option and the jump-set, and Ahmed quick-twitch enough to pick up much of what gets behind him. Benesh and Partain are the closest comparable to Sweden as there is in the world.

Qatar was ready.

Cherif piled up five blocks and is now No. 3 for the tournament, behind Hellvig and Germany’s Nils Ehlers, despite only once going three sets. Ahmed’s seven digs vaulted him to tops in the field, five ahead of Ahman and seven more than Norway’s Christian Sorum, who is in the other semifinal.

Offensively, they were tremendous. They passed nearly perfect, allowing zero aces against one of the toughest serving teams in the field. Partain was limited to 2.5 digs per set, meaning any earned points virtually had to come from the block of Benesh. His five blocks were admirable, but not enough. Not enough to overcome the rash of errors that occasionally comes with the on-two, jump-setting style with which they play, and indeed there was a rash of them, 16 in total.

The USA, then, is out of the tournament, and Paris will mark the first Olympic Games in history that the United States will not medal in beach volleyball. For the men, this extends a drought that dates back to 2008, when Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers won gold.

Since, the American men haven’t even made a semifinal.

The women, too, are off the podium for the first time since 2004, with Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes bowing out in fifth, and Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth settling for a surprising ninth.

With the absence of Americans, there is a gap for history to be made elsewhere.

Melissa Humana-Paredes, Brandie Wilkerson make history

Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, now playing the role of adopted Americans with both of the USA teams eliminated, are into the semifinals after a 21-18, 21-18 win over Spain’s 22-year-old phenoms Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno. They are the first Canadian women’s team to make an Olympic semifinal, and will now have two shots at Canada’s first women’s medal — John Childs and Mark Heese won bronze for Canada in 1996 — the first coming in Thursday’s semifinal against Switzerland’s Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli, who are likewise in their first Olympic medal round.

“Every single team here is of excellent calibre, so every time it’s a difficult game,” Wilkerson told Volleyball Canada. “But luckily we’ve faced a lot of challenges before getting to this… I’m proud of our team and our resilience and grit.”

Sweden earns rematch with Qatar in Olympic beach semifinals

Resilience and grit are apt words to describe Sweden’s David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig. Entering Paris, they were the odds-on favorites to win, surpassing even Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum, the defending gold medalists.

Then, to the shock of the collective beach volleyball world, they dropped two matches in pool play. Yet they’ve rebounded well, beating Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz and sweeping Brazil’s Evandro Goncalves and Arthur Mariano, earning a rematch with Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan in Thursday’s nightcap semifinal.

Norway’s Mol-Sorum, Brazil’s Ana Patricia and Duda seeking Olympic podium

The other semifinal required, on paper, little resilience or grit. Mol and Sorum have yet to drop a set in Paris, sweeping Spain’s Adrian Gavira and Pablo Herrera, 21-16, 21-17. Ehlers and Wickler, in their sixth semifinal of 2024, have lost just one set, to Australia’s Thomas Hodges and Zach Schubert, but are also undefeated.

More convincing, perhaps, than any team in the field, men or women, is Brazil’s Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa.

Coming off a rough stretch of three consecutive tournaments without a podium – this, for them, is considered a rough stretch – Ana Patricia and Duda have been tearing through teams, the most recent being Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova. A 21-16, 21-10 is the latest sweep, and those scores are hardly unusual. Only Egypt, of all teams, has come within two of Brazil.

The next team to try will be Australia’s Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho, who are seeking a second straight Olympic medal after claiming silver in Tokyo.

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