The Olympics may be over, but the competition season for some of those sports you were watching — and may have unexpectedly become a huge fan of — is not.
One of those sports that drummed up a wave of newly enlivened fans is beach volleyball, and fresh off their run at the Paris Games, some of the nation’s Olympic players are ready to get back in the sand — at stakes that remain just as high.
On Sunday, Aug. 18, America’s only national beach volleyball league, AVP, will hold the men’s and women’s finals of its Manhattan Beach Open, with the winners getting an automatic bid in the inaugural AVP League that starts in September.
The Manhattan Beach Open, which began in 1960, is the largest on the AVP tour and the longest-running beach volleyball tournament in the U.S. And this year, you might notice some familiar faces.
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Four players from women’s Olympic beach volleyball will be battling for a win this year: quarterfinalists Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes along with Round of 16 participants Taryn Kloth and and Kristen Nuss.
And from the men’s Olympic roster, quarterfinalists Andy Benesh and Miles Partain as well as Round of 16 participants Chase Budinger and Miles Evans will be competing.
At the 2022 AVP Manhattan Beach Open, Hughes clinched first place with her former teammate, and Cheng placed second with hers. Benesh and Evans placed fourth at the 2022 tournament.
“There has been incredible excitement at the Olympics in Paris with the sport of beach volleyball,” said Robert Corvino, AVP chief operating officer. “This will be the first opportunity coming out of Paris to watch these incredible athletes on the men’s and women’s sides.”
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Also vying for that bid at the tournament will be 2020 Olympic gold medalists April Ross and Alix Klineman and 2008 gold medalist Phil Dalhausser.
Ross and Klineman placed first in the 2018 and 2021 AVP Manhattan Beach Opens, while Daulhausser placed first with various teammates from 2006 to 2008, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018.
The AVP Manhattan Beach Open will air on ION Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m. ET.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for fans who were so engaged during the Olympics to continue to enjoy the sport of beach volleyball at one of the premier events of the AVP,” said Brian Lawlor, Scripps Sports president.
The E.W. Scripps Company is the parent company of both Scripps News and ION, which is also home to the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Friday night doubleheaders and the National Women’s Soccer League Saturday night doubleheaders.
