Dain Blanton

Dain Blanton
portrait
birthday	November 28, 1971
place of birth	Laguna Beach (California), USA
partner	1994 various partners 1995 Ian Clark 1996–1997 Canyon Ceman 1997 Kent Steffes 1997–2001 Eric Fonoimoana 2002 Carl Henkel 2003–2004 Jeff Nygaard 2005 Kevin Wong 2006–2008 various partners
successes
1997 - AVP Special Achievement 1997 - Third World Championship 2000 - Olympic Champion Sydney 2003 - AVP Best Offensive Player 2003 - AVP Team of the Year (with Jeff Nygaard) 2004 - Participation in the Olympic Games Athens
(As of September 8, 2011)

Dain Blanton (born November 28, 1971 in Laguna Beach (California) , United States ) is a retired American beach volleyball player , Olympic gold medalist and the first African American to win a major international beach volleyball event.

Career

In 1994 Blanton started his AVP career with various partners, including Ian Clark , the permanent partner in 1995. With his partner in the following two years, Canyon Ceman , Dain Blanton won the Hermosa Beach tournament in 1997 , becoming the first African American winner at a beach volleyball tournament of international importance. In the same year, the Californian won the bronze medal at his second FIVB tournament at the side of Kent Steffes at the first official beach volleyball world championship in Los Angeles .

From the end of the year, Blanton competed with Eric Fonoimoana . The two won three tournaments on the American tour by 2000. On the FIVB world tour, the two Americans could not win a single tournament until mid-September 2000. At the Olympic Games in Sydney of all places, however, the knot burst and after a final victory over the Brazilians Zé Marco and Ricardo , Blanton / Fonoimoana won the gold medal. The two played together until the end of 2001, the greatest success in the last year of their collaboration was a second place in place of Blanton's first triumph at Hermosa Beach.

After rather moderate success with Carl Henkel in 2002, Dain Blanton changed his beach partner again in 2003. With Jeff Nygaard , the Californian got three wins and a second place in AVP competitions. This balance made the two AVP Team of the year. In addition, Blanton was named best offensive player. With Nygaard he also won his first (and only) regular FIVB tournament on Rhodes in Greece that year . In 2004, Dain Blanton became the first American beach volleyball player to take part in his second Olympic Games , with Jeff Nygaard as a partner. However, the two were eliminated in the group last in the preliminary round. In the same year the two Americans had another success on the AVP tour in Chicago . This was also Dain Blanton's last victory in an AVP or FIVB tournament.

In the years to come, he changed partners frequently and played a few tournaments with Eric Fonoimoana, his colleague from his greatest success, before ending his career at the end of 2008.

Private

Blanton grew up in Laguna Beach, California. He played basketball at Laguna Beach High School. In addition, at the age of eleven, he decided to play volleyball to emulate his brother Kurt. After high school, Dain Blanton studied at Pepperdine University and graduated in public relations . He was a finalist on the television show " The Bachelor ". Today the Californian works as a sports commentator and reports on the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team , the Dodgers and Angels baseball teams and the beach volleyball competitions of the AVP and FIVB.

Web links

• Official website (English)
• Profile in the Beach Volleyball Database (English)
• Profile at the AVP ( Memento from April 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
• Portrait in the magazine Jet (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ volleyball.org