Oympics volleyball recap: Larson, Hancock OK; Karch goes glamping; Bruno’s breakfasts; limping around Paris
What’s next?
Jordan Larson and Micha Hancock are recovering. They’re OK, thankfully, but the two USA women’s silver-medalists were in a car crash before leaving Paris and are pretty banged up.
Karch Kiraly, not sure if he’ll be back as the women’s coach, is going “glamping.”
USA men’s players have just a couple of weeks before they have to report to their European pro teams.
It never stops.
This weekend, all four USA Olympic beach teams will play in the AVP Manhattan Beach Open: Miles Partain and Andy Benesh and Chase Budinger and Miles Evans on the men’s side, and Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes and Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss on the women’s.
And the NCAA women’s season begins in 13 days.
All that and a personal recap of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Hancock, Larson OK after crash
Larson, who just finished her fourth Olympics, and Hancock, who was the official alternate who played in two matches when she replaced Lauren Carlini, posted on Instagram where they displayed some pretty vicious bruises, especially Hancock after the Uber in which they passengers hit a pole.
Larson showed a bad bruise on the outside of her eye, but Hancock’s was far worse. Her eye was discolored and swollen shut in the photo she posted on Instagram apparently from a hospital room.
“Alright guys, here I am. Car wreck after Paris 2024 concluded. My Uber driver hit a pole on the way to the hotel after a night out with the team,” Hancock said in an Instagram story. “Luckily @gov1007 (Larson) was there with me. She took care of me. Things happen fast guys … take care of yourselves. Wear your seatbelts. Definitely walking away from this happy to be alive. Have some injuries but should recover within months.”
Larson posted, she said, so when she returned to her coaching job at Nebraska this week people would know what happened and she wouldn’t have to repeat the story.
“Things definitely could have been worse,” Larson said on Instagram.
Both players are joining the new LOVB pro league. Hancock will play for LOVB Houston and Larson is going to LOVB Omaha.
The others went to NYC
That included Chiaka Ogbogu, Annie Drews, Justine Wong-Orantes, Haleigh Washington, Kathryn Plummer, Lauren Carlini, Avery Skinner, Jordan Thompson, Kelsey Robinson Cook and Dana Rettke.
Setter Jordyn Poulter and men’s players Matt Anderson and Taylor Averill joined the Today show hosts on the coach. Here’s a link if you haven’t seen it. Don’t expect much, but any publicity on that level for our teams is good publicity.
They later went to Wall Street to the stock market.
Now they disperse and, as Poulter said — no doubt speaking for many of her teammates — she looks forward to not jumping for a while.
Plummer, for one, gets married next month. Within a month after the USA women won gold in Tokyo in 2021, Drews, Robinson Cook and Larson got married.
Speaking of weddings, USA men’s official alternate Kyle Dagostino is also getting married next month and then heads to Berlin, where he’ll play for Recycling Volleys.
Dagostino was with the two USA women’s unofficial alternates in the Charles de Gaulle airport Monday morning, libero Morgan Hentz and middle Anna Stevenson Hall. Hentz will play Athletes Unlimted this fall and then return to the Pro Volleyball Federation’s Atlanta Vibe, and Hall will play for LOVB Madison with Drews and Carlini. Hentz and Hall served as practice players in Paris. They were excited to be going home to meet their new puppies, Golden Retrievers from the same litter.
Kiraly on post-Olympics and the future
What’s next for the coach, who was an assistant in 2012 and has now guided the team through three Olympiads?
“I need to take a little time off,” Kiraly said with a laugh about an hour after the gold-medal match. “A little wife time, a little family time. Probably do a little glamping. I would say camping, but we like to pull a travel trailer and have a hard shell between us and the bears.
“A lot of my family was here and they had a great time. They really enjoyed the city and the people of Paris and it’s been a great experience. I didn’t go to see any other events live but certainly France put on a heck of a Games.”
While we spoke, outgoing USA CEO Jamie Davis stood alongside.
I asked Kiraly if he’s coming back as the coach.
“I would say that’s a possibility,” he replied. “We have some things to figure out. USA Volleyball has some things to figure out. We have our great CEO on his way out,” Kiraly said, nodding to Davis, “finishing up at the end of September. There’s a search going on right now and from my best understanding USA Volleyball is doing the wise thing and waiting to get that checked off before they figure out other things, like who will coach the women and who will coach the men and if people like me and John return.”
John is John Speraw. He, too, was an Olympics assistant before taking over as head coach of the men leading into 2016.
“I think that’s a wise move and the right order to allow the new CEO to be a significant part of that process.”
Davis, by the way, is becoming the CEO of USA Water Polo.
The 13: Not pretty but welcoming and wonderful
To cover the Olympics, you first apply for your media credential. Once approved, you then go through the local committee to get housing. I assume much larger and more international media organizations get to choose a hotel in the center of things, closer to the tourist attractions in more happening areas.
In my case, I chose the Amiral Hotel in the 13th Arrondissement.
I lucked out.
The Amiral has 50 rooms and is in a neighborhood where everyday people have everyday lives. It borders Chinatown and that became a restaurant refuge for me when I wasn’t at Le Globe. The only American I talked to the entire time was my wife, who came with me the first week. In my hotel were some other foreign journalists, including a contingent from Italy and another from Portugal. There were also some incredibly fit guys from Spain and Portugal, policemen brought in to work the Olympics.
All of us would see each other most every morning at “petit-déjeuner,” the French term for breakfast that was overseen by Bruno. Bruno was the nicest man and he and his staff cooked fresh eggs every morning, made the most creative pastries, put out fresh fruit, and always had a “Bonjour!” and smile for you.
When you walked out of the front door of the hotel on avenue d’Italie, everything you needed was right there. Next door was a boulangerie, that had incredible sandwiches, about 18 inches of baguette stuffed with the best stuff. Each morning I would get one to pack and take with me to volleyball. For 4.90 Euros (about $5.37USD) it was awesome.
Every Thursday and Sunday mornings there is a market with more fruit and veggies than you have ever seen, blocks of tables where you can buy anything from chicken to watermelon to bathroom supplies to clothing. It was a spectacle in itself.
Another 20 yards down the sidewalk from the Amiral was the aforementioned Le Globe Cafe. I only ate there about nine times. Maybe 10. It was open early, it was open late, and there were times I felt like Norm in Cheers when I walked over and took a seat at one of the sidewalk tables.
“Un IPA, s’il vous plait.” Great food, too.
I did not go to the opening or closing ceremonies. Big events like that are not for me, so I watched those spectacles and a lot of sports on TV. I hit beach volleyball a couple of times and I got to water polo on an off-USA volleyball day (watching with, of all people, Jamie Davis).
While Paris did a great job, these were still the walking Olympics. Things were pretty spaced out and, unfortunately, I played with pain the last two weeks. After about the fifth day, my left Achilles tendon swelled up and it was, and still is, quite annoyingly painful. I made it a priority not to walk fast or too far when possible and, above all, not pop an Achilles in Paris.
So, more good stuff about the Amiral.
Right outside the door was the bus stop where I could catch the 47 and take it two stops to Porte d’ Italie, where I would get on the T3a tram. The tram took about 20 minutes and stopped about 200 meters from the entrance to South Paris Arena 1, the 10,000-seat indoor volleyball venue.
(Side note: I’ve been lucky through a five-decade sportswriting career to cover quite a bit. The men’s gold-medal final between France and Poland might have been the most electric atmosphere of any sporting event I’ve ever been to. The French embrace their teams in such a big way and when the crowd sings “La Marseillaise,” the national anthem, it is like nothing else.)
The bus could sometimes be an adventure. One time I got off a stop early and limp-walked the rest of the way because I didn’t want to be there for what I figured was a fight that was going to break out. Between two women.
The tram was the most interesting people watching, sometimes was a bit too crowded, and often riders were watching other Olympics events on their phones.
Back to that sore Achilles. The hotel didn’t have ice machines like we’re used to here, but Helena of the Amiral, who is from Sri Lanka and so delightful, made sure I got my ice bags filled daily so I could ice the Achilles.
Abdul, a big man who is so friendly and who worked the front desk, is from Senegal and speaks at least four languages, including, luckily, fluent English. He was so helpful. I left him one of my VolleyballMag.com XXL T-shirts.
Then there was our coverage. We asked for three credentials but got one. So … Travis Mewhirter, nine time zones behind me in Hermosa Beach, and Stacey Faris, our director of ops in the Eastern time zone, and I all worked together every day for almost three weeks to churn out story after story.
(Side note: The two coaches, Kiraly and Speraw, were always more than gracious with their time after matches. So were the USA players, something that could not be said about some players from other countries who sometimes just walked past and ignored their nation’s media clamoring for quotes. The USA players were simply great to talk to after every match, win or lose.)
Travis crushed in on the beach reporting. I’d like to think my indoors coverage was pretty solid. And, thanks to all of you, we had record VolleyballMag page views for three weeks.
And why not? Such compelling stories, even as our USA beach teams came home without medals for the first time ever and our indoors both medaled. This was the end of an era on both sides. As many as four or five players on each team are likely finished with international play. USA Volleyball not only gets a new CEO, but could have new coaches and will have very different indoor Olympic teams heading into Los Angeles 2028.
The volleyball in four years is in the Honda Center in Anaheim. I have no idea where I’ll be staying, but I bet the breakfast won’t be as good as Bruno’s.
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