Women’s Beach Volleyball | July 25, 2024
LOS ANGELES – Four USC beach volleyball All-Americans are headed to Paris to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games this week. Four-time All-American Sara Hughes (Costa Mesa, Calif./Mater Dei HS) and partner three-time All-American Kelly Cheng (Fullerton, Calif./El Dorado HS) will represent the United States; four-time All-American Tina Graudina (Jurmala, Latvia) will represent Latvia; and two-time All-American Sophie Bukovec (Toronto, Ontario/Bishop Allen Academy) will represent her native Canada.
Cheng and Graudina are each now two-time Olympians. Graudina and partner Anastasija Samoilova finished in fourth place at the 2020 Tokyo Games (held in 2021). Cheng and former partner Sarah Sponcil finished in a tie for ninth in Tokyo. Hughes and Bukovec are each first-time Olympians.
Cheng and Hughes are the defending FIVB World Beach Volleyball Champions and the world’s fourth-ranked pair. They are co-coached by USC associate head coach Gustavo Rocha. Graudina-Samoilova is the seventh-ranked duo in the world. Bukovec and partner Heather Bansley—a three-time Olympian—earned their spot in the Olympic Games by winning the NORCECA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Tlaxcala, Mexico. Bansley and Bukovec are the world’s No. 21-ranked women’s pair.
Graudina has the distinction of being the first-ever collegiate beach volleyball athlete to qualify for the Games. She and Samoilova won the Olympic qualifying tournament in Haiyang, China, in September 2019 to secure their initial berth.
There are nine NCAA beach volleyball athletes competing in the Paris Games. USC’s four are the most from any single college. LSU is represented by the world’s No. 2-ranked pair of Americans Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss; and TCU is represented by Daniela Álvarez Mendoza and Tania Moreno Mateeva—the 16th-ranked world duo—from Spain. Texas A&M Corpus Christi is represented by alumna Giuliana Poletti Corrales who plays for her native Paraguay.
The U.S. has claimed Olympic gold medals in women’s beach volleyball in four of the last five Summer Games. Three-time USC All-American and…
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