Beach Volleyball

Unlike some volleyball players on the Toyota Pro Beach East Tour, Jason Hodell and Jason Bartholow have families and full-time jobs. However, if last year's results from the Baltimore stop are any indication, this pair should not be taken lightly. Hodell and Bartholow are teaming up again in this weekend's tour event at Rash Field after finishing second a year ago. Toyota Pro Beach East Tour Today and tomorrow; Rash Field; seating is free to the public Schedule: Today: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; tomorrow: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (final around 3 p.m.)

Good SportsGary PaytonGary Payton of the Seattle SuperSonics has a gift he likes to give kids every year: a special day.Last March, Gary flew three seriously ill kids from Seattle to his hometown of Oakland, Calif. The kids attended a Sonics' game.``They felt like regular kids, instead of always thinking about being sick,'' says Gary. ``It was a good day.''Sports Around the WorldBrazilBrazil is the largest country in South America. Soccer is the national sport of Brazil. Other popular sports are beach volleyball, tennis, basketball and auto racing.

So few hours in a day, so many sit-ups to do."I've only had time to do about half of them," Holly McPeak, beach volleyball's poster body, was saying around noon yesterday.So that would be, how many?"Eight hundred, I guess."If McPeak is peeved at recent intrusions on her self-imposed boot camp -- there was a taping with Oprah in Chicago on Thursday, a slew of media interviews and promotions here yesterday -- you can't tell. Like many of the players on the pseudo-Santa Monica built off Key Highway for the U.S. Olympic beach volleyball trials, McPeak's eyes are cooly shielded behind reflective sunglasses.

Beach volleyball is expected to be one of the most interesting events at this summer's Olympic Games in Atlanta. Once considered strictly a California sport, it has taken off internationally.It also has gone indoors.With 240 tons of sand, a thermostat raised to 80 degrees and eight of the top teams in the country, the sport will come to the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Va., today in the form of the Evian Indoor Pro Beach Volleyball Championships."It's not very different at all [from real beach volleyball]

When the 1992 Olympic Games were played in Barcelona, Spain, beach volleyball was literally an afterthought. Shortly after the flame was extinguished, shortly after the millions of athletes, officials and fans went home, an international tournament was held some 200 miles away."

ARE THEY OVER yet? I'm talking about the Olympics, of course. Is it three weeks they've been going on now, or three months? I know I said they were entertaining, but enough is enough. We've had wars that didn't go on this long. I'm exhausted.I never knew there were so many sports. Not just track and field and swimming and basketball and cycling and boxing and wrestling and baseball and soccer, but archery, badminton, shooting guns, riding horses, fencing, tennis, beach volleyball, wind-surfing, synchronized swimming.

It was a huge undertaking, especially under the circumstances. The U.S. Olympic beach volleyball trials were awarded to Baltimore barely three months before the event, and still the Maryland Sports Corporation put up a stadium and put on a show.Maybe attendance could have been a little better, but the five-day beach festival/pre-Olympic tournament at HarborView apparently will break even, which would make it a big success for the nonprofit Maryland Sports Corporation."All in all, I think we're going to be right where we thought we'd be," said MSC president Barbara Bozzuto.

FAIRFAX, Va. -- The sand was as white as snow, or the snow was as white as sand, depending on whether you were inside or outside the Patriot Center at George Mason University yesterday.It was better to be inside, where the temperature was in the 70s and the arena was all decked out for a beach party -- right down to the two live rock bands and the 240 tons of sand that transformed the floor into an artificial beach for the Indoor Pro Beach Volleyball Championships.Obviously, it's not just a warm-weather game anymore.

Baltimore will get a chance to show its Olympic spirit again this year. The Inner Harbor has been chosen as the site of the first-ever men's and women's U.S. Olympic Beach Volleyball Trials.USA Volleyball and International Marketing Group will announce today that the Olympic qualifying tournament will be held June 5-9 at HarborView Marina & Yacht Club. Baltimore, one of six locales to make a serious bid for the trials, was chosen from a short list of finalists that also included Dallas and Kiawah Island, S.C."

The sand is there. The dudes and dudettes are there.Organizers of the U.S. Olympic beach volleyball trials really did come close to re-creating the traditional beach experience in a parking lot on Key Highway.They left out only a few key elements.Middle-aged guys with catastrophically huge beer guts billowing over Speedo bikini trunks, for instance.None of them was around yesterday as the trials opened.Nor were there any shrieking toddlers accidentally kicking sand in your face just as you were dozing off.A beach isn't a beach without them, is it?

The Sun's Olympic correspondents, Rick Maese and Kevin Van Valkenburg, are blogging back and forth to each other at baltimoresun.com/olympicsblog. An excerpt: To: Kevin, et al. You might want to check out this link. Match.com, as you might or might not know, is a popular dating site. Not that I know anything about it. (For the record, I am NOT the same rmaese3641b who enjoys Scrubs, Wes Anderson movies, seaweed salad, the Sunday Times crossword puzzle and California Pinot Noir.) Anyhow, where was I?

The question has been put to Mr. Flip: In the Olympics, why do the female beach volleyball players wear little bikinis while the men wear sleeveless tops and long shorts? Mr. Flip hadn't really thought about this much while enjoying the athleticism of Misty May-Treanor as the sweat drips down her tanned, toned body and she lightly brushes off the sand that has covered one of her upper thighs. ... One moment, please, while Mr. Flip composes himself. Yes, Mr. Flip supposes some viewers might enjoy seeing the male competitors play shirtless.

What to watch Ray Frager's guide to the 2008 Olympics, which begin tonight with the opening ceremony at 7:30 (all prime-time listings for chs. 11, 4) AUG 9 HIGHLIGHTS It's the first episode of the Phelps and Hoff Show, as Baltimore's gifts to the swimming world compete in their versions of the 400-meter individual medley. They hold the men's and women's records for the 400 IM and could be holding gold medals tonight (though it will be day in Beijing). Locals to watch Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff, of course.

What does it take to lure a yuppie from Washington up to Baltimore on a 96-degree day? "A pool and some beer and some volleyball," said Jen Collins, 33, hoisting her tumbler of Labatt's Blue Light and wriggling with evident pleasure around the cloudy, leaf-choked water of a kiddie pool on the southerly banks of the Inner Harbor. The bikinied banker with PNC Financial Services Group and her three teammates had hijacked the inflatable pool to cool off between matches at the fourth annual end-of-season beach volleyball tournament at the Rash Field sand courts.

Unlike some volleyball players on the Toyota Pro Beach East Tour, Jason Hodell and Jason Bartholow have families and full-time jobs. However, if last year's results from the Baltimore stop are any indication, this pair should not be taken lightly. Hodell and Bartholow are teaming up again in this weekend's tour event at Rash Field after finishing second a year ago. Toyota Pro Beach East Tour Today and tomorrow; Rash Field; seating is free to the public Schedule: Today: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; tomorrow: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (final around 3 p.m.)

TODAY STAR-SPANGLED CONCERT -- The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will perform its annual Star-Spangled Spectacular Show today and tomorrow at 8 p.m. at the Oregon Ridge Park, 13401 Beaver Dam Road, Cockeysville. Gates open at 5 p.m. Activities for children will be offered. A choreographed fireworks show will ends both nights' performances. Tickets are $15 for adults, and $7 for children 12 and younger in advance; and $17 and $8 at the gate. Free parking and shuttle service will be available at the Verizon lot on Shawan Road.

Inner Harbor's Rash Field, once home to an ice skating rink and now a playground for barefoot beach volleyball players and soaring trapeze students, might soon be transformed again - with a parking garage beneath it. The preliminary plan, which might endanger the two attractions, is to be presented to Mayor Martin O'Malley and community and business leaders this month. It would involve elevating the field enough to build a one- or two-level parking structure underneath, holding 400 to 500 cars.

The commodities broker returned to his office job and the accountant flew home to Florida, but for a few scorching hours yesterday at the Inner Harbor, Wall Street's B.J. Soldano and Miami's Gaston Macau lived their alter egos. Like most of the 46 other volleyball players who competed this weekend at Rash Field's Toyota Pro Beach East men's volleyball tournament, Soldano, 28, and Macau, 30, balance professional lives with professional sport. On a tour where no admission is charged and beer is cheaper than lemonade, winners don't typically sign endorsement deals or win large purses.

To pass time while riding from on Olympic event to another, few things entertain as much as the personal ads in the Athens News, the city's English-language newspaper. "Russian dancer. 1.78 tall, perfect athletic figure, wishes to meet gentleman for outgoings." Or "very attractive and charming lady (germ/engl) like to meet nice gentleman (also correction)." Or "American tall, dark and beautiful, 35y. young, 181 cm, highly intelligent, looking to meet generous man." But my favorite is one perhaps the intelligence community should keep an eye on: "Man, handsome, discreet, open-minded, 26y.o.

ATHENS - Rowdy as always, beach volleyball placed medals around the necks of its most skilled players yesterday, and as usual, something delightfully unusual occurred. The competitors hugged, all of them, and kept hugging, the gold, silver and bronze medalists and the countries they represent indistinguishable. Two pairs of the United States' best and one pair of Brazil's best stood on that podium, but all you could see were respectful volleyball players sharing joy. "I'm very proud of the three teams up there," U.S. gold medalist Kerri Walsh said.