One of my favorite things about attending the Olympics so far is being able to see for the first time different types of sports competitions. Like beach volleyball.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect. A coworker had told me there would be bikini-clad cheerleaders. I thought he was kidding. Turns out, the beach babes are a mere fraction of the action.

The Set Up

Beach volleyball play is similar to regular volleyball—first side to reach 21 wins the game; two games needed to win the match. But the trick is there are only two players per team. And it’s played on sand. It’s also a sport that doesn’t take itself too seriously, I imagine due to the nature of the destination where it’s most popular: Southern California.



After having spent the day watching tennis matches where anyone in the crowd who yelled a single “Let’s go China,” during play was told to pipe down, I found myself in an arena where not only was the crowd encouraged to cheer, but also loud dance music played regularly; an emcee led the packed audience in chants and the wave; Fuwa characters, those Olympic mascots I wrote about in an earlier post, danced around the sand; and those bikini-clad cheerleaders—their dance breaks were called “technical time outs.”



Action in the Seats

The crowd too was rowdy (and pretty drunk) and nearly as interesting to watch as the competitions taking place on the court. Many dressed up in costumes, including superhero characters, or wore their country’s flag draped around them as a toga; large contingents of fans wore matching outfits (including those large, multicolored, jester-type hats you used to see along places like St. Mark’s Place in New York for some reason) and sat together as a block and yelled their own team chants; people were getting up and dancing in the stands. The party atmosphere continued throughout the evening’s six matches, which started at 6 p.m. and lasted until midnight.



Solid Bodies

But that doesn’t mean beach volleyball’s competitors aren’t serious athletes. Those men and women are in incredible shape, and they work their butts off during matches. (I put them right up there with swimmers and cyclists as having some of the best looking athletic bodies around.) We happily watched the U.S. women’s team win and the men’s team from Japan, whose (hot) players were always smiling and entertaining with their exaggerated facial expressions and body movements. China won too, and the place went wild.



Getting Buggy

Only downside of the evening? Bugs. During the fourth match beetles seemed to fall out of the sky and land on us and others around us. Black beetles, about an inch long. Scared the **** out of me when one plopped on my shoulder. Then there was a praying mantus flitting around as if looking to make a sequel to Pans Labyrinth.



All in all, this ticket cost the least of the games but was by far the most entertaining. However rather than sit through a second session the next night, which we had tickets for, we opted instead to sell them and splurge on tickets to the swimming events at the Water Cube. Didn’t want to risk having too much fun two nights in a row...