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While all eyes are wanting on at Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Kerri Walsh Jennings cannot look ahead to what’s to come back 4 years from now in a spot that helped her becomde the seaside volleyball legend she is right now.
The five-time Olympian and three-time gold medalist is worked up the 2028 Summer Games will likely be in Los Angeles, a spot that’s distinctive contemplating her sport of selection.
Walsh Jennings is hoping that Santa Monica, the birthplace of recent seaside volleyball, would be the house of competitors for the 2028 Games.
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Beach volleyball legend Kerri Walsh Jennings poses with a Santa Monica Travel & Tourism ball in entrance of the Eiffel Tower. (Santa Monica Travel & Tourism)
Walsh Jennings, who partnered with Santa Monica Travel & Tourism forward of the lads’s and girls’s seaside volleyball finals in Paris, defined why this legendary a part of Los Angeles is “ideally” the place the place one of the best on the planet ought to converge in 2028.
“The sand is deep, it’s very clean and it’s just where you want to be because all the great ones played there, trained there and cut their teeth there,” she advised Fox News Digital. “For me as a young athlete coming up, Santa Monica was a big part of the journey for becoming excellent. Looking ahead to 2028, I know we’re going to have four amazing teams representing our country — two men [teams] and two women.
“I simply can’t consider a greater metropolis to characterize our nice sport.”
BEACH VOLLEYBALL LEGEND KERRI WALSH JENNINGS FELT USA PATRIOTISM IN PARIS: ‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’
As Walsh Jennings put it, you don’t have to sell California beaches to anyone as a destination to land on, but “not each seaside is created equal.”
“In my humble opinion, town of Santa Monica and their 3½ miles of fantastic, white, sandy seashores are completely excellent, particularly for my life as a seaside volleyball participant,” she explained. “I’ve traveled the world I’ve competed in very iconic areas, just like Paris with the Eiffel Tower stadium and Copa Cabana in Rio. But I can’t consider a greater seaside to compete on, to play on, to have my household play on than the seashores in Santa Monica. It’s fairly unimaginable.
“As I look ahead to the Olympic Games of 2028, knowing that beach volleyball will be highlighted again because Santa Monica is literally the modern birthplace of beach volleyball, I just can’t think of a better city to represent our great sport.”
Santa Monica seaside with volleyball nets (Kristen Beinke)
Almost a century in the past in 1930, the two-person workforce on sand, the trendy approach we see seaside volleyball right now, was born in Santa Monica. It’s why Walsh Jennings is not the one one considering it is solely proper to see seaside volleyball performed at its birthplace, which is what Santa Monica Travel & Tourism President and CEO Misti Kerns is making ready for.
“Santa Monica has a long legacy of welcoming everyone, from Olympic athletes to beginners, to play and explore our sandy shores. We join Los Angeles as it prepares to welcome the Olympics in 2028,” Kerns stated to Fox News Digital.
“Santa Monica will be the perfect place for sports enthusiasts to base their stay at the beach. Not only do we offer a culture of outdoor movement, the destination offers a wide variety of choices from our 40 incredible hotel properties, an abundance of restaurants with outdoor dining in our eight neighborhoods for shopping and a wealth of entertainment.”
Restaurants and procuring in Santa Monica are Walsh Jennings’ bread and butter. While she was fortifying her abilities to succeed in Olympic heights, she was additionally having fun with every part town has to supply.
Aerial view of Santa Monica Pier (Santa Monica Travel & Tourism)
“When I moved down there, it’s kinda like whenever you go to North Carolina and also you go to the health club, and also you’re like, ‘Oh, Jordan played here,'” she said. “Santa Monica, to me, is that. … The best of the best in our sport played in Santa Monica.
“So, when I moved down to (Southern California), I would go and train with Misty May-Treanor, my partner of 10 years. She grew up on the beaches of Santa Monica.”
That duo won three golds in three straight Olympics, and they are now a part of the great history the Santa Monica sands have produced.
It’s tough for Walsh Jennings to see the U.S. not return home from Paris with any medals in men’s or women’s beach volleyball, but she’s confident the talent is there to change that when they’re on home soil in four years.
Kerri Walsh Jennings attends the Parity Paris Show at Opera Garnier July 28, 2024, in Paris. (Julien M. Hekimian/Getty Images)
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“I know we fell short in Paris. No one made it to the semifinal round, which is very sad,” she said. “But that doesn’t take away from the greatness of these athletes. So, I believe that the truth that LA goes to be host to the Games, it’s going to create extra hearth for the athletes to get even higher, to strengthen themselves and take all of the learnings from Paris and kick butt on the sands in LA.”
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