Phew what a scorcher

By R.B. | LONDON

AT FIRST glance it seems somehow wrong that an Olympic sport can be played barefoot on sand by bronzed bodies wearing only scraps of clothing. But perhaps, after all, beach volleyball is closer in some ways to early Olympic ideals about pure physicality than events involving high-tech trainers or aerodynamic bicycles.

Beach volleyball, played at the London Olympics in the palatial surroundings of Horseguards parade in St James’s Park, is one of the few events that has captured the excitement of Britain as host country during the seven long years of building cynicism from successful bid to the two-week Olympic extravaganza.

Of course it is not so much the sport itself that excites most people, but the prospect of those bikini-clad women. Which is sadly why this is one of the few sports where the women’s matches attract more attention than the men’s. The Olympic organisers were sensitive to this and have alternated games so that any ticket to see the sport live will include both sexes.

In purely sporting terms, beach volleyball is not, in my view, the most riveting. It is skilled, fast and has occasional impressive long rallies, but ultimately it never feels like any point lasts long enough to really get into it. Nevertheless, the show at Horseguards is fabulous fun.

The organisers have perfectly captured the spectacle and beachside atmosphere (the sun has mostly played along too). Snippets of Beach Boys, Levellers, Verve and other songs blare between each couple of points; the crowd claps, cheers and occasionally sings along. Between sets a team of dancing girls (and three token men) in swimsuits and bikinis come out and strut their stuff (beach balls are also an occasional prop). Even the six volunteers who rake the sand manage to look like they’re part of the sporting humour. On the afternoon of July 30th, during the women’s Brazil-Germany match, a Mexican wave went round the stadium so many times the commentator had to find a way to make it stop.

The beautiful setting adds to the strange allure of the event: it takes place only a hundred yards or so from the prime minister’s residence at Downing Street and the war rooms where Winston Churchill made his second world war plans. The turrets and roofs of Whitehall are visible beyond the stands. It was a brilliant touch to juxtapose such frivolity and the heart of power.

Britain really views beach volleyball as a joke. For the competing athletes, though, the matches are rather more important. And some nations take the sport more seriously than others. Particularly striking is the Chinese men’s team, who were by far the tallest and most muscular Chinese men I have ever seen. One of them, known as “Tiny” Xu, is 6 ft 8 inches, is the son of a handball player and a volleyball player. His teammate, Wu Penggen, is an inch shorter. They were each taller than the two Germans they played (though they lost the match). In America they would have been snapped up by basketball teams. In China, I suspect, the prospect of an Olympic medal is still a grander hope.