RIO DE JANEIRO – Kerri Walsh Jennings may not have won gold this Olympics, but she says she will cherish this bronze medal even more.
Walsh Jennings and partner April Ross defeated Larissa and Talita of Brazil late Wednesday night in the beach volleyball stadium at Copacabana Beach to claim the bronze, less than a day after the American duo lost a heartbreaking match to another Brazilian duo, Agatha and Barbara. She had won gold in the last three Olympics.
The reason Walsh Jennings will appreciate this bronze more? The pressure it took to win it. She and Ross had to come down from a set in a winner-take-all atmosphere in front of a hostile Brazil crowd.
“Once you win a semifinal, the gold medal match is easy,” Walsh Jennings said after the match. “No disrespect to win the gold medal, it takes everything you have, but you’re going to go home with a medal. The bronze medal match is the gnarliest match I’ve ever played in in my career, because you either go home with a beautiful medal or you get nothing. And for me it just meant so much more, because last night just felt so bad to play like that. Losing happens, but losing that way is just something that is unacceptable to me.”
Walsh Jennings was aced five times the night before in a match the Americans lost in straight sets. It was the first Olympic loss of Walsh Jennings’ career.
When asked if she would cherish the bronze as much as the gold, she answered: “Times a million. I’m so grateful for every gold medal, and I’m so proud. The semifinal match in sports is really gnarly, to put yourself in that position, and the bronze medal match is ten times harder.”
Walsh Jennings, 38, has not said if she will return in four years for Tokyo 2020.
“I haven’t spent one second thinking about that,” she said. “I have no room in me to think about tomorrow.”
