We’ve been watching it all this time: History in the making.
We were watching it in Las Vegas, when Sarah Sponcil would skip out on the nightly activities at the MGM Grand and choose to study instead. She was playing in a four-star Olympic qualifying event, yes.
But she was also still in school.
We were watching it seven months later, in Itapema, Brazil, when Sponcil jetted straight from her second straight NCAA Championship for a country quota. Her and Kelly Claes, competing as legitimate professionals for the first time – not as one professional and one college amateur – would match up with Kerri Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat.
Their first match as professionals was over in 28 minutes, a 12-21, 14-21 loss.
We’d be viewing history in the making as the two hit China and the Czech Republic and Poland and Gstaad, mixing in precocious success – a ninth at World Championships, for example – with the stumblings of a youthful team attempting to reach the pinnacle of this sport.
For three years now, we’ve been watching these two writing the chapters of history.
On Wednesday afternoon, in Ostrava, history was finally made.
After winning a gold medal in Sochi, Russia, last Saturday evening, Sponcil and Claes took the lead in the Olympic race for the second American berth. They did so with one event remaining: The Ostrava four-star. The only way they could lose that spot would be if Kerri Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat were to medal.
They didn’t medal.
Walsh Jennings and Sweat were upset by a tremendous young Dutch team, Raisa Schoon and Katja Stam, 21-18, 19-21, 15-12. That win by the Netherlands confirmed it: Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes were Olympians.
History was made.
Sponcil and Claes, at 24 and 25 years old, respectively, are the youngest American Olympic beach volleyball team in history. They are the harbingers of a new generation, of a youth movement that is beginning to break through.
They’ve been writing history for 33 months.
In the Czech Republic, history was made.
