Good morning, beach volleyball fans,
It’s the best week of the year: Gstaad week. (If and when FSU wins an NCAA Championship, Gulf Shores might replace it, but for now, it’s Gstaad)
So beware, all of you on Instagram and any other social media mediums, there will be many, many pictures and videos of beach volleyball players sipping espressos and coffee with the greenest, biggest, most God-blessed, cartoonishly beautiful mountains you’ve ever seen in the background. If you haven’t been, you must. If you have, you must come again.
Nothing beats Gstaad.
Nothing.
It makes this eight-hour layover at JFK, where I’m writing most of this newsletter, worth it and then some. I don’t even care. I’m just thinkin’ ’bout them mountains. They’re calling, always calling. And this week, I finally get to go again.
Funny part, too, is that I land in Geneva about 30 minutes after Alexis Durish and Audrey Koenig, our court one pair at Florida State, head out to Montpellier for another Futures after debuting in Geneva this past weekend. How’d their first one go?
An undefeated gold, their second straight undefeated run after a blitz to the top of the podium at a NORCECA in the Cayman Islands the weekend before. It isn’t that big of a surprise: They’ve been bullying teams all summer. While researching a little for that story, I came across a fun, 100 percent biased stat: Of USA Volleyball’s six gold medals on the Beach Pro Tour this season, FSU teams are responsible for three. (LSU, shout out to them, holds the other two, while UCLA has one. Funny that every team who has won gold has been comprised of players who played for the same college. I nerd out on weird stats like that).
Anyway: Proud FSU Dad over here.
Fun as that story was for me to write, it pales in comparison to the sheer madness that was the men’s final. Marco Krattiger and Leo Dillier were down 6-13 in the third set to Poland’s Bartosz Losiak and Michal Bryl. Seven points! No matter, they clawed all the way back and won gold, 16-14, in what I think is the biggest comeback I’ve seen in a third set in men’s beach volleyball, especially given the gap between the two teams in overall resume. Even crazier? The only point Poland scored after going up 13-6 was due to a net on Krattiger after Dillier scooped a perfect dig.
I’m going to try and record a film room from Gstaad this week on that third set, because it’s just too nutty not to do something on it.
Just as the lives of Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander are too nutty not to have had a Taylors content dump this week.
The week in SANDCAST Studios
This past week was a boon for the pod numbers, as our most popular guests, Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander, returned to the studio with Tri Bourne to chat all things life, including Sander’s return to indoor, Crabb’s debut in the NCAA coaching world, the AVP League, Crabb and Trevor Crabb reuniting — all of the things:
More on the Taylors
As I mentioned: The conversation covered a lot.
News Around the Beach
- Lexy Denaburg and Julia Donlin made their first semifinal as a team. They’ve had an up-and-down debut season as partners, but this past week in Stare Jablonki was a big up. While they eventually dropped to France in the bronze medal match, the weekend was a biggie in the World Championships race, which gets even more interesting this weekend in Gstaad. Speaking of…
- Gstaad Elite up next. The Beach Pro Tour rolls into the Swiss Alps this week, beginning with Wednesday’s qualifier of the Gstaad Elite. No USA Volleyball men’s teams are in the qualifier, so it’ll be Andy Benesh and Miles Partain and James Shaw and Chaim Schalk repping the U.S. in the main draw. You can find the men’s entry list here. Four USA Volleyball women’s teams will be competing in the qualifier — Kim Hildreth and Teegan Van Gunst, Julia Donlin and Lexy Denaburg, Hailey Harward and Molly Phillips, Savvy Simo and Abby Van Winkle — with three already in the main draw. Defending champs Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth headline the event as the 1 seed, reigning silver medalists Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft are the 5, and Kelly Cheng and Gstaad rookie and therefore mountain and coffee picture dumper Molly Shaw are the 7. Lots of teams celebrating Fourth of July in Switzerland. Here’s the women’s entry list.
- Repost from last week: I think I wrote my favorite story of the year on my flight to Los Angeles. Planes are good thinking environments for me, and sometimes, stories flow. After reading Wright Thompson’s Pappyland, I wrote a reflection on fatherhood, sports, and stories that matter.
- We now have an ad free tier for audio. Tired of listening to ads? I saw a bunch of comments on the ad frequency in Rogan podcasts, and figured I’d give our listeners an ad-free option. For 5 bucks a month, you no longer have to listen to ads, and you support the show. Win win. Here’s the link where you can become a patron.
- Watch SANDCAST Episodes Early! Become a member of our YouTube Channel and you’ll get every piece of content days before anybody else.
- Coming up on Wednesday we have Kylie DeBerg, a blocker whose stock is skyrocketing right now for the USA. If you’re a member, you can already watch the full episode here, as well as the quick hits we’ve pulled from it, like how difficult it is transitioning from indoor to beach, and how she and Toni Rodriguez went from 6 straight losses to a gold medal run in China.
Where You Can Follow The Pod
- We’re essentially working to become the new VolleyballMag. A big part of that is building a Facebook presence, so we’re building a page. Would be awesome if you could follow us there!
- Spotify, obviously. Linked below
Much Love to the sponsors
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SANDCAST adds another year with AG1. One of our longest-running sponsors, AG1, is back on the pod for another year. We’ve re-signed with the brand, and have changed our model with them, to a fully affiliate-model. So if you want to stay healthy AND help the show, please order with this link, which comes with a full year of Vitamin D for FREE, as well as five totally FREE travel packs!
We’re officially partnered with Better at Beach! If you want to get Better at Beach, use our code SANDCAST for 10 percent off all of their products, from online classes to in-person camps and more.
Appreciate y’all for listening, reading, and loving the beach like we do.
Have a great week!
SHOOTS!
SANDCAST Team
