USA TODAY Sports counts down the 100 days to the Rio Olympics with daily stories about athletes, teams and coaches preparing for the Summer Games. The opening ceremony is Aug. 5.
USA Volleyball CEO Doug Beal didn’t really have to explain the timing of Karch Kiraly’s contract extension to coach the women’s national volleyball team through 2020.
Kiraly, whose contract extension was announced Thursday, has a record that speaks for itself.
- He is the first player – male or female – to win Olympic gold in both indoor (1984, 1988) and beach volleyball (1996).
- During his playing career, he won the Triple Crown of volleyball, with included gold medals at the 1984 Olympics, 1985 FIVB World Cup and 1986 FIVB World Championship. He also won 148 beach volleyball tournaments before retiring in 2007.
- He is the first coach to lead the American women’s volleyball team to the FIVB World Championship gold medal in 62 years.
It’s no surprise that Beal wanted Kiraly, 55, as his coach for Rio and beyond.
“We feel frankly honored and very lucky that we’ve been able to secure Karch’s services,” Beal said Thursday on a conference call with reporters. “The job that he’s done up to now in this quad is really exceptional and to be able to have the continuity with someone we value so highly is a huge plus for our program.”
Despite his success with the U.S. team since taking over as head coach in September 2012, Kiraly is only looking ahead to the Olympic tournament in Rio de Janeiro beginning Aug. 6. He was an assistant coach to Hugh McCutcheon at the 2012 Olympics.
The U.S. women have won silver at the last two Olympics, and only Brazil has stood in the way.
“They won the last two women’s volleyball Olympics, beating Team USA in the finals of each of those,” Kiraly said of Brazil. “Certainly we’re going to be facing some massive headwinds. And that’s why we focus so much on being the team that is most apt and willing and hungry to battle for each other … We’re going to be really tough to try to accomplish something that the USA women have never done before.”
To qualify for Rio, the U.S. team won the NORCECA Olympic Qualification Tournament in January in Omaha, beating Canada, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. The Americans have won six of their last seven tournaments and are ranked No. 1 in the world.
Last week players arrived in Anaheim for a training camp after playing from October in April for their pro clubs. Kiraly is eager to get to work with the FIVB World Grand Prix beginning next month as a key tournament before the Olympics. The U.S. opens play in Ningbo, China, on June 10-12 before hosting a round of the tournament at Long Beach State a week later. Then the Americans will play in Hong Kong, and, if they advance to the final round, they will play in Bangkok in early July.
With all the travel his players will endure in the next few months, Kiraly will keep an eye toward peaking in Rio.
“We want to have a full tank when we arrive in Rio,” he said “We don’t want to arrive grossly depleted there. Less is more is going to be part of our thinking training wise even though we do have things we have to accomplish, some things we have to improve.”
Kiraly has brought several new players into the fold in the last four years. Among them are Kim Hill, who was just named MVP of the Turkish League playoffs, and Kelsey Robinson, MVP of the Italian Serie A playoffs after leading her club to the championship.
Both Hill and Robinson are in the mix to make their first Olympic teams. Hill was the MVP of the 2014 world championships after making her national team debut the previous year.
Of the world team members who won gold in 2014, only five were on the Olympic team two years prior. Alisha Glass, Kayla Banwarth, Tori Dixon, Nicole Fawcett, Rachael Adams, Kristin Hildebrand, Kelly Murphy, Hill and Robinson were on the roster for worlds but weren’t on the team in London. Hildebrand was an alternate on the Olympic team in 2012 and 2008.
Glass, Banwarth, Fawcett, Murphy, Adams, Hill, Hildebrand and Robinson are on the 22-player preliminary roster for the Grand Prix prelims that was announced Saturday.
