1st Olympic Loss Doesn't Dim the Luster of Kerri Walsh Jennings' Greatness

So the impossible actually happened. The unbeatable was beaten. Maybe the most dominant U.S. Olympic athlete ever had a bad night. And when it was over, she ran around the beach thanking everyone the way she always does when she wins.

Yes, the beach. This isn't about Simone Biles or Katie Ledecky or Michael Phelps. It's about beach volleyball's Kerri Walsh Jennings, who, with partner April Ross, lost to Brazil's Agatha and Barbara in the Olympic semifinal Tuesday night. The best Walsh can do now is win bronze.

And the question is: How do you take that? Does it seem like a loss for a big part of the fabric of 21st century American sports? Because that's what it was. Walsh had been no less dominant in the Olympics than Usain Bolt. Until now, it was three Olympics, three gold medals. Zero losses.

Until Tuesday night, she was 26-0 in the Olympics in Athens, Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro.

I'm going to be honest here: The first time I saw her, with former partner Misty May-Treanor, I did not see this coming. They won their first gold at the Athens Olympics in 2004. It felt like a club setting, with loud music, a DJ, a beat that made people dance in the stands and volleyball in the sand played hard by women in bikinis.

Petr David Josek/Associated Press

Yes, serious volleyball was in the mix of things that day, but it wasn't No. 1.

I'm sure any beach-volleyball people reading this are already cringing and getting a little angry. They live in that culture, and it didn't take any adjusting for them to see what this game is.

It was one of the most fun sporting experiences I'd had. It was a big beach party in the place where the ancient Olympic Games were being honored. The marathon was being run along a similar path to the first one ever. Not the one from 1896.

I'm talking about ancient Greece. Like 490 B.C. You wonder what Zeus would have thought if he were sitting there watching the 6'2" Walsh, with the guy screaming over the PA system to fill every single second when the ball wasn't in play.

Twelve years later, here was Walsh, and while I was just watching on TV, I kept wondering why she was having such a hard time passing when Brazil was serving, or why Ross wouldn't move forward whenever Brazil was going for a kill from a little farther away from the net than it wanted. Come on: They were going for the shorties every time! Figure it out!

Meanwhile, Walsh kept anticipating where the ball would go on everything else and using angles and body positioning to throw off what her opponents were trying to do.

Walsh changed the sport. That doesn't mean NBC isn't making a point of showing beach volleyball all night during the Olympics because women in bikinis will drive ratings. It's just that Walsh has been around so long, winning so much, that the game now has its place. The party atmosphere is still there, but a serious sport has moved to the front of the list.

YASUYOSHI CHIBA/Getty Images

Walsh has adjusted the swing on her spike, or kill, or whatever it's called. The game is all about positioning and cutting angles. Walsh dislocated her shoulder twice last year and had her fifth—fifth!—shoulder surgery in the fall.

Apparently, she dislocated it in one match, popped it back in and continued on. She is so obviously an incredibly hardworking, hard-practicing athlete.

Earlier in the Games, she was on NBC describing herself as "a working mom, a loving wife and a kick-butt athlete."

Of course, on Sunday, she also saw that someone on Twitter was complaining about NBC showing too much beach volleyball. The since-deleted tweet said, "I've seen enough of Kerri Walsh's side boob. Scantily clad=big ratings? Please."

Walsh tweeted back: "You're obviously not watching. There's none of that going on. Not even close."

I'm not saying people shouldn't notice the party atmosphere. It exists, and pretending that it doesn't would be a lie. But just because it's fun doesn't mean it's not a real sport.

Every sport has an attitude. This one just has an attitude that's different from traditional U.S. games. That's a good thing, really. There is no question that this is an athletic, grueling, demanding game.

You dive into the sand, face-plant, get up while your partner is trying to set you up, and then you fly in and jump for the kill.

There is nothing set in stone about the attitude sports are supposed to have. Football is aggressive. Beach volleyball takes a beach atmosphere and adds a little killer instinct. And Walsh Jennings is doing all that at age 38.

The game reflects a big part of Americana. And so does Walsh.

So what happened Tuesday?

"I'm obviously really, really, really upset," Walsh Jennings said on NBC. "It always comes down to fundamentals, and today the most fundamental part of my game broke down, which is my passing. ... I just didn't stick my passes. Had I done that, it would have been a different match completely. I just didn't give us any breathing room. They're too good to do that. I'm bummed."

It can happen. Even to the best kick-butt athletes.