The United States will win both the gold and silver medals in women's beach volleyball today, the question is only which ladies wear which colors. Americans Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings will face off with fellow American April Ross and Jen Kessy today in the gold medal game at Horse Guard's Parade.
The match will take place at 4pm eastern time and can be streamed live on NBCOlympics.com. NBC will air the match on TV in prime time.
The fact that Misty and Kerry find themselves in the finals is no shock. The pair are going for an unprecedented 3rd straight gold medal and are arguably the greatest women's pair to ever hit the beach. Still, they did have to overcome the world's #2 ranked team, China's Xue Chen and Zhang Xi to get here and did so in impressive fashion.
That said, their win over the Chinese wasn't close the biggest upset. That belongs to the other American team of Ross & Kessy, who took out the world's #1 team, Brazilians Larissa and Juliana. It sets up the match Kessy has been eyeing the whole tournament.
"We've been saying it and we're all staying at the same hotel," Kessy told NBC. "We have this little area that we all eat in and everyone keeps saying, 'USA-USA final. USA-USA final.' It's sunk in and it's happening. It's crazy."
The two sides have met before... many times. This will be their 33rd competitive match against one another with May/Walsh holding a 27-5 edge. On the international stage, May/Walsh have been victorious in 11 of 13 meetings. This will be the first meeting with a gold medal on the line.
For May & Walsh, it's a swan song. Misty has announced that she will retire after these games, so it will be the final competitive match that May and Walsh play together.
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