Kerri Walsh

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Kerri Walsh Volleyball (beach)
Kerri Walsh
2012 at the Grand Slam in Moscow
portrait
birthday 15th August 1978 (age 42)
place of birth Santa Clara, California, United States
size 1.91 m
Partner 2001–2012 Misty May-Treanor
2004 Rachel Wacholder
2008–2012, 2017–2018 Nicole Branagh
2013–2017 April Ross
2018– Brooke Sweat
World ranking Position 42
successes
2002 - World Tour Champion
2003 - World Champion
2004 - Olympic
Champion 2005 - World Champion
2007 - World Champion
2008 - Olympic
Champion 2011 - Vice World Champion
2012 - Olympic Champion
2016 - Olympic Bronze
(As of March 3, 2020)

Kerri Lee Walsh Jennings (born August 15, 1978 in Santa Clara , California ) is an American beach volleyball player . She became Olympic champion in 2004, 2008 and 2012 with her partner Misty May-Treanor . In 2016 she won the bronze medal with April Ross . Together with May-Treanor, she also won the beach volleyball world championship three times and was successful in 112 consecutive tournament games between 2007 and 2008. She is considered one of the most successful beach volleyball players in history. At the beginning of her career, she also played indoors and took part in the 2000 Olympic Games with the US national team.

Career

Walsh began her career at Stanford University , initially playing indoor volleyball .

2000 Summer Olympics

The outside attacker took part with the USA national team in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney , in which the United States finished fourth.

Then Walsh switched to beach volleyball. She plays on both the AVP Tour and the FIVB World Tour . Walsh completed their first tournament on the World Tour with Misty May-Treanor at the 2001 Cagliari Open. Third in Gstaad, Walsh / May-Treanor won their first medal and in Espinho they won the final against the Brazilians Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede . At the World Cup in Klagenfurt they reached the round of 16 without losing a set, which they lost against the Chinese Chi Rong and Xiong Zi in the tie- break. After the World Cup, Walsh was in three finals of FIVB tournaments and each time she was defeated by Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede, in Osaka and Hong Kong with May-Treanor and in Fortaleza with her substitute partner Holly McPeak . At the World Tour 2002 Walsh / May-Treanor won three of the first four tournaments ( Madrid , Gstaad and Montreal ) and were in the final of the Grand Slam in Marseille . They achieved further tournament victories in Klagenfurt and Maoming before finishing second in Mallorca and Vitória in September . With this they finished the series as World Tour Champion 2002. At the beginning of the World Tour 2003 they won the Gstaad Open after a place in Rhodes . After the lost final in Stavanger , they successively won the three Grand Slams in Marseille, Klagenfurt and Los Angeles . At the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro , Walsh / May-Treanor reached the final unbeaten, in which they prevailed against Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede and became world champions for the first time. They also won the AVP Tour in their homeland without defeat, with Walsh named Most Valuable Player (MVP).

Walsh / May-Treanor opened the World Tour 2004 with three tournament wins in Fortaleza, Rhodes and Gstaad. At the Grand Slam in Berlin they missed the top ten for the first time. This ended a series of 89 games without defeat. Then Walsh played temporarily with Rachel Wacholder and won the Grand Slams with her in Marseille and Klagenfurt.

2004 Summer Olympics

At the Olympic Games in Athens , Walsh and May-Treanor were reunited. They made it to the final without submitting a sentence. As in the World Cup, there was a duel with Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede, which the US duo won 2-0. The Olympic champions dominated the AVP tour again with Walsh as MVP. They were just as successful at the World Cup in Berlin when they only lost a set in the semi-finals against Chinese Tian Jia and Wang Fei . With a final win against the Brazilians Larissa / Juliana they defended their world title. Also at the World Tour 2005 they won almost all tournaments in which they participated, only at the Acapulco Open they had to admit defeat in the final Larissa / Juliana. Walsh was recognized by the FIVB as the best female block player and “Sports Person of the Year”. In the AVP Tour, Walsh / May-Treanor achieved their third overall victory in a row.

At the first four FIVB tournaments in 2006 they were each in the final. In Athens they won against Ji Linjun and Wang Lu and in Gstaad against Larissa / Juliana, to which they were defeated in the finals in Modena and Paris . Walsh / May-Treanor achieved another tournament victory in Acapulco against Talita / Renata . They started the 2007 season with a victory at the Grand Slam in Paris and after a third place in Stavanger a winning streak began. Walsh / May-Treanor remained unbeaten on the AVP tour from August 19, 2007 to August 31, 2008; the defeats at the beginning and end of the 112-game winning streak they conceded against Elaine Youngs and Nicole Branagh . On the World Tour, Walsh won all tournaments and a total of 75 games from the Montreal Open in July 2007 to the Dubai Open. In the end, she competed with Branagh in Dubai because May-Treanor tore an Achilles tendon during a dance show . During this series Walsh / May-Treanor stayed at the World Championships in Gstaad without losing a set and became world champions for the third time in a row in the final against Tian Jia and Wang Jie .

2008 Summer Olympics

Walsh (right) with Misty May-Treanor and then US President George W. Bush during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing

They also managed a tournament without losing a set at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing . There was also the final against the Chinese and Walsh / May-Treanor won their second Olympic gold medal. They also dominated the AVP tour again. Since Walsh, who received the FIVB's “Sportsperson of the Year” and various other individual awards every year from 2005 to 2008, was already two months pregnant at the tournament in Dubai, she took a baby break. After the birth of her first child, she completed a number of tournaments on the AVP tour , especially with Rachel Wacholder . But then she became pregnant again and therefore paused until 2010.

At the end of the 2010 World Tour , Walsh played two tournaments with Branagh, finishing fifth in Sanya and winning the Phuket Open. For the 2011 season the successful duo Walsh / May-Treanor was reunited, which initially came second in Brasília and fourth in Sanya. After Walsh had played the Mysłowice Open with Brittany Hochevar , she and her standard partner won the Grand Slam in Beijing with a final victory against the German duo Holtwick / Semmler . At the World Cup in Rome they were only defeated in the final against Larissa / Juliana. In the further course of the tour they won tournaments in Moscow and Klagenfurt; there were also three fifth places and in the end two lost finals in Åland and The Hague . They played their first final on the 2012 World Tour at the Grand Slam in Moscow, losing to Xue Chen and Zhang Xi. They won the Grand Slam in Gstaad with a victory against the Dutch Keizer / van Iersel .

2012 Summer Olympics

The revenge they succeeded in the round of 16 of the Olympic Games in London ; there they came back into the final and won their third Olympic gold medal in a row with a victory in the US duel against Jennifer Kessy and April Ross . After this success, May-Treanor declared her career over. Walsh still played the Grand Slam in Stare Jabłonki with Branagh. At the Games in London she was pregnant for the third time and took another break.

In 2013, Walsh formed a new duo with April Ross. On the FIVB World Tour , after finishing ninth in Gstaad, they won the Grand Slams in São Paulo (against Ludwig / Walkenhorst ) and Xiamen (against Lima / Talita ). At the beginning of the 2014 World Tour , they won the Fuzhou Open and later the Grand Slams in Moscow, Stavanger and Long Beach . The other tournaments they finished in fifth or ninth place. They achieved their first overall victory together at the AVP Tour. In the 2015 season , Walsh was somewhat restricted due to a shoulder injury. After finishing third in Fuzhou, she missed the top ten of an FIVB tournament at the Grand Slam in Moscow for the second time in her career. At the World Cup in the Netherlands , Walsh / Ross survived the group phase and the first knockout game unbeaten, but had to admit defeat to Chinese Wang Fan and Yue Yuan in the round of 16 . Their only final in 2015 in the FIVB series they played in Long Beach, where they lost to Larissa / Talita. They opened the World Tour 2016 by winning the Grand Slam in Rio de Janeiro . They later won the Open tournaments in Fuzhou and Cincinnati and the Grand Slam in Moscow. At the Gstaad Major they were again defeated by Larissa / Talita.

2016 Summer Olympics

Bronze game at the 2016 Olympic Games

As the best team in the Olympic ranking, Walsh / Ross qualified for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro . As group winners, they reached the semi-finals with two more victories. There they had to admit defeat to the Brazilians Ágatha / Bárbara . Walsh lost a game at an Olympic tournament for the first time and missed her fourth gold medal in a row. Walsh / Ross won the bronze medal game against Larissa and Talita . They then won the Grand Slam in Long Beach and finished fifth at the season finale in Toronto .

Due to differences regarding the US-American AVP tour, Walsh and Ross split up in spring 2017. Walsh has since played back with Nicole Branagh . Brooke Sweat has been her partner since the end of 2018 and she plans to take part in the Olympic Games for the sixth time in Tokyo in 2020.

Private life

Walsh is the daughter of Margie and Tim Walsh and has two younger sisters, Kelli and KC, and an older brother named Marte. Her father was once a baseball player and her mother was a two-time MVP (Most Valuable Player) in volleyball in Santa Clara . Walsh married Casey Jennings (* 1975) on December 4, 2005 , who is also a professional beach volleyball player. She graduated from Stanford University with a degree in American Studies .

Walsh is the mother of two boys born in 2009 and 2010 and a daughter born in 2013. The two live with their children in Manhattan Beach .

Web links

Commons : Kerri Walsh  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ FIVB world rankings (as of December 3, 2018)
  2. ↑ Record streak snapped: May-Treanor, Walsh case in Ohio. USA Today , September 1, 2008, accessed August 17, 2016 .
  3. ↑ a b Double delight for pregnant Walsh after gold at 2008 stop in Dubai. FIVB, January 29, 2009, accessed on August 17, 2016 .
  4. ^ Beach World Tour (F): Olympic champion May-Treanor with a tear in the Achilles tendon. DVV, October 7, 2008, accessed on August 17, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings close era of beach volleyball dominance with third Olympic gold medal. The Washington Post , August 8, 2012, accessed August 18, 2016 .
  6. ↑ a b US beach volleyball player Walsh Jennings - Cumbersome gold. Spiegel Online , September 25, 2012, accessed August 17, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Kerri Walsh Jennings' gold-medal streak snapped in semis. ESPN , August 17, 2016, accessed August 17, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh - the lioness is still hungry (July 12, 2019)
  9. ↑ Portrait at Team USA (English)
personal data
SURNAME Walsh, Kerri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walsh, Kerri Lee; Walsh Jennings, Kerri (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American beach volleyball player
DATE OF BIRTH 15th August 1978
PLACE OF BIRTH Santa Clara , California, United States