Volleyball beach is where to find Olympic Midnight Madness
Published 5:15 pm Sunday, August 7, 2016
By Jerry Brewer
The Washington Post
RIO DE JANEIRO — Midnight at the Olympics: Across the street from Copacabana Beach, a woman in a black cat suit leans seductively against a wall, leaving tank-topped men bug-eyed as they walk past. The packed sidewalks almost feel like they’re moving in rhythm with the people, and the music and strobe lights from Volleyball Beach Arena turn the area into a rollicking nightclub. It is here that these Rio Games let their hair down — and wear as little clothing as allowable.
Beach volleyball has lived 20 years as an Olympic sport, and there’s not a more fitting way to celebrate than to play on the so-called most famous beach in the world and let loose this country’s innate party animal. On Saturday, the first full day of competition, beach volleyball began at 10 a.m., consumed the final 14 hours of the day and needed to borrow 69 minutes from Sunday to finish. The featured match is at midnight daily, a ridiculous red-eyed affair that NBC wanted for its American viewers. For Brazilians, it’s just a convenient place to start the night.
My mission was to experience it without falling asleep. Parenthood has taken the nightlife out of me, unless we’re talking about comforting a crying baby. But at 10 p.m. Saturday, after covering a 57-point United States blowout disguised as a men’s basketball game, the little adventurist on my shoulder whispered, “Loosen up. Worst case: You’ll be snoring amid the finest sand in all the land.”
By 11:15, I was walking into an outdoor bar — hey, it’s basically connected to the media center — where two journalists sat at a table with their laptops surrounded by bottles of SKOL beer and a couple kissed on a lounge sofa. It was 75 degrees on this Brazilian winter night, with a wind just strong enough to keep the fatigued moving.
Enter the arena, a shaky, 12,000-seat structure that stands 70 feet high and looks like a really cool LEGO project. The DJ is playing the Darth Vader theme song “The Imperial March” as I sit. It turns out that this song blares every time a call is challenged and reviewed. Ignore the constant music, and you can hear the waves playing splash on the beach. The water is so close it seems as though an errant pass could sail into the Atlantic Ocean.
“It really felt magical out there,” said U.S. beach volleyball star Kerri Walsh Jennings, a three-time gold medalist.
Walsh Jennings and partner April Ross played in the midnight match against the Australian duo Nicole Laird and Mariafe Artacho del Solar. They didn’t start until 12:34 a.m., and it took Walsh Jennings and Ross just 35 minutes to complete a 21-14, 21-13 victory. Their reward is to play at midnight again early Tuesday morning.
“That’s OK,” Ross said. “We’re night owls.”
“We really are,” Walsh Jennings said. “It’s a party atmosphere, especially under the lights at night. The Brazilians get louder at night. So it was really fun.”
Competitors normally can’t stand waiting so long to play. Walsh Jennings and Ross, both Californians, trained their minds to think of the midnight scheduled start time as really an 8 p.m. event in Pacific time. Still, they had to deal with a long wait.
They practiced and watched video in the morning. They meditated. They played crossword puzzles. They spent time alone between 1:30 and 10 p.m., with one rule: Don’t get bored and start walking the streets. Doing so could sap them of too much energy.
“Growing up, you’re taught not to just shut off the game, to always be focused,” said Ross, who teamed with Jennifer Kessy to win a silver medal four years ago in London, losing to Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor. “Well, now, you have to know how to turn it on and off.”
Neither the American nor the Australian duo could remember starting a match later than 12:34 a.m. Laird said the challenge was “mind over matter.” The arena was about three-quarters full for the China-Switzerland match before the midnight special. Despite the draw of Walsh Jennings, the arena thinned to about half full for the final event. Either the fans grew weary, or the locals dragged them to find another spot.
I was proud that I didn’t yawn until 12:58 a.m. Eleven minutes later, Walsh Jennings and Ross were celebrating, and a male in a USA tank top was attempting to revive the dab dance.
A post-midnight match at the wildest Olympic venue had ended, finally. And in less than nine hours, another beach volleyball session was due to begin, featuring the Brazilian tandem of Larissa Franca Maestrini and Talita Antunes. At Volleyball Beach Arena, it’s a party certain to test the endurance of fun.
“Brazilians are a lot more passionate about beach volleyball than Australians,” Laird said. “It’s really inspiring, the passion that’s in the air. And this was just the first day, and the place wasn’t full, and you could still feel the energy. It’s quite an experience to play here.”
At 1:50 a.m., I left the arena through the wrong exit and found myself in the outdoor bar. So, of course, I had a SKOL. And then another (the beer is really light, okay?). Just after 2 a.m., I was on a bus, rolling away from a neighborhood still active but starting to fade. Maybe Saturday night in a city known for partying had effectively turned into Sunday morning. Or maybe I’m a presumptive fool.
After two bus rides (and two naps) back to the Barra neighborhood, I walked into my hotel and face-planted on the bed. But the sound of music thumping from across the street interrupted attempts to sleep. It was 3:35 a.m. Rio has a second wind, and it’s not as pleasant as a beach breeze.
It seems Midnight at the Olympics was merely a glorified happy hour.
