Volleyball:
Stanford’s Alix Klineman teams up to win gold.
April Ross and partner Kerri Walsh Jennings had a bitter breakup in 2017 over the direction of professional beach volleyball in the United States.
Walsh Jennings, one of the biggest stars in her sport, launched an ambitious new beach tour while Ross stuck with the established Association of Volleyball Professionals circuit.
The situation forced both women to seek new partners to prepare for the Tokyo Games.
The change worked out successfully for Ross, 39, who found her path to gold Friday.
Ross and new partner Alix Klineman scored a 21-15, 21-16 victory over fifth-seeded Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy of Australia to win the beach volleyball title at Tokyo’s Shiokaze Park.
Walsh Jennings, 42, just missed qualifying for her sixth Summer Olympics with her new partner Brooke Sweat.
When Ross began looking for a replacement for Walsh Jennings she wanted someone to help her win a gold medal to go with the silver and bronze she won in 2012 and 2016.
She partnered with Klineman, who like Walsh Jennings was a Stanford All-American. Like Walsh Jennings, she was tall, athletic and unstoppable at the net.
Like Walsh Jennings, she’s now an Olympic gold medalist.
The winning partnership began about a year after Klineman, 31, failed to make the women’s 2016 indoor Olympic team.
The four-time Stanford All-American felt lost after spending her career with the goal of playing in the Olympics as an indoor player.
But all she needed to do was look out the front door of her Manhattan Beach home to see the golden road to Olympia.
Ross sized up the 6-foot-5 Klineman and decided it was worth the risk to take on a rookie who had little beach experience.
“Ever since becoming her partner there has been a feeling of not wanting to let her down,” Klineman said. “She took a big risk on me.”
When they started Klineman had little to offer other than potential. But anyone who saw her play at Stanford could have predicted what would happen next.
Klineman went to work learning the mechanics and movements of playing in the energy-draining sand.
“Beyond her physicality, her work ethic, her intelligence, her intensity is huge,” said Ross, a former USC All-American from Costa Mesa. “I knew coming out to the beach to make the Olympics, to take such a risk for herself, was going to be a huge motivating factor.”
The duo won all seven of their matches in Tokyo while reminding fans of Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor who were unbeatable in winning three consecutive gold medals.
Klineman grew with each Olympic game and by the semifinals were contested she had the makings of another Walsh Jennings as a dominating net presence.
Klineman, though, said what fans witnessed did not simply happen with “some magic formula.”
She spent hours after hours with Ross learning the subtleties of blocking like a beach player.
That meant shedding the muscle memory of the indoor game, which was not easy to do.
“April saw a lot of days where things weren’t clicking,” Klineman said.
Ross said her partner spent so much time reviewing video that she felt the need to study up too. The duo discussed their play. They dissected the issues and would try again and, Klineman said, fail again.
“The biggest thing was just sticking with it and being persistent and going with all the effort and intensity that I had and believing that I eventually could make the changes I was trying to make,” she said.