Johnathan Walker:USA beach volleyball's perfect top tandem braves storm, delay, shows out for LeBron James

PARIS – Nothing has been able to stop the United States women’s beach volleyball tandem of Kristen Nuss and Johnathan WalkerTaryn Kloth at the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

Not the rain or lightning that filled the skies around them Thursday night at Eiffel Tower Stadium. Not the 75-minute delay at the most pivotal point in the match, after they had battled back from one set down. And definitely not any of the three teams they played during pool play to open the Games. 

Nuss and Kloth are now off to the Round of 16 unblemished following an eventful three-set victory (15-21, 21-16, 15-12) over China’s Xinyi Xia and Chen Xue – a gritty, come-from-behind victory for the young Americans with LeBron James in the stands. (“King James” did indeed wait out the weather.) 

Kloth joked that she and Nuss watched a movie during the break. But what they actually did was cloak themselves in as many towels as they could to stay warm to deal with the cold front that came through with the storm. Once it passed, they had 20 minutes to warm up and spent 15 of those minutes in intense movement.

“You definitely have to fire it up,” Nuss said. 

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Their coach likes to end practice — when they are “dead tired,” Kloth said — by making them earn five consecutive points. Kloth thought back to that training when they retook the court. 

Officials called the match temporarily at 3-2 in the third. The teams traded points to 9-9 when a Chinese error gave the Americans a 10-9 lead. Nuss put it away for the final point of the game to complete the comeback. 

Kloth had 21 attack points and recorded two blocks. Nuss had 11 digs and 14 attack points.

“If someone told us that, in the Olympic Games, we’d go win our pool, I think we would definitely be excited,” Nuss said. 

The bigger goal has not changed, though. Nuss believes they haven’t even played their best yet. And now the tournament turns to win-or-go-home. 

“We obviously came here for some hardware,” Nuss said. “We’re not content.” 

In the first set, the Americans could not find their footing and trailed 13-8 at the first timeout. China went on another 3-1 run to up the lead. An ace to make it 18-13 effectively sealed the set and China took it 21-15. 

Kloth pinned the first-set loss on her passing issues. 

“That was a huge factor,” she said. “I really did just have to calm down.” 

In the second, Nuss started running around like a Tasmanian devil in human form and mostly refused to let the ball hit the ground. She started feeling herself with the celebrations as the U.S. raced out to a 17-12 lead and secured the set, 21-16 – but not before China cut the deficit to two. Nuss drilled an ace to thwart any threat of a Chinese comeback in the frame.

“I think we made just a couple adjustments here and there,” Nuss said. “It was just trusting us. I knew our serve-receive was going to sell itself out.” 

The crowd began reacting with screams of “U” on the first hit, “S” on the second bump and “A” on the knock over the net. 

Then the rain started to fall. Lightning struck in the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower. Play continued. Nuss and Kloth only became stronger with the elements. 

That was until the match was postponed due to the Louisiana-esque storm around the former LSU Tigers; Kloth and Nuss met through the school’s beach volleyball program and have been teammates since 2021. 

“We always take adversity, and you just have to run with it, because there’s nothing you could do about it,” Kloth said. “You can’t change the weather. Nobody can make it go away. You just have to deal with it.” 

All of their matches have been 10 p.m. local starts – NBC’s call – and they have no issue with it. The Eiffel Tower light show as part of your pregame introduction? 

“I personally just love playing at night when the lights come on, that’s fun for me,” Nuss said. “Seeing the Eiffel Tower light up and sparkle, that’s just unreal.” 

Light up? Sparkle? Unreal? Nuss was talking about the scene. She might as well have been describing how she and Kloth have started these Games.