Alison is a beach boy

passionate – even though they were against us. They were asking the crowd to be fair to us, but I’m not expecting that.

“I felt the hostility, but I don’t take it personally – my buddies would be doing the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot.”

And Schmidt’s future grandchildren will be inundated with his exploits over the next fortnight.

He said: “It’s a dream come true to play at the Olympics on Copacabana. The atmosphere of the crowd is something we will be feeling all the way through.

“This is remarkable, something I will keep in my mind and tell my nephews and one day my grandchildren.

“Beach volleyball is about Brazil, it is about Rio.”

Beach volleyball has gone bankrupt as a professional sport twice in the last two decades – and, despite the athleticism involved, it still struggles for any sort of profile outside of Olympic fortnight. The Italian pair of Adrian Carambula and Alex Ranghieri kicked off the tournament with a comfortable victory over a pair from Austria.

Carambula, by the way, is a maverick who frequently employs 100ft high serves.

After the Brazilian boys had triumphed in the nearest thing to a bearpit this beach has ever seen, it was over to the women.

Taliqua Clancy and Louise Bawden of Australia comfortably defeated a Costa Rican pair and showed us that, in these austere times, they are sensibly still skimping on the bikini fabric.

But, for the Brazilians, it is far more serious than all that.

Having collected 11 medals since this sport debuted at Atlanta in 1996, they’ve got their beach towels down on the podium already.