There we were in South Tyrol, Italy, to play snow volleyball.
It is April of 2019, and Riley McKibbin is standing atop Kronplatz Mountain, a towering peak in the Dolomite mountain range in northern Italy. He’s idling between matches of snow volleyball, a ridiculous sport being played in a setting of ridiculous beauty. Surveying the breathtaking scene before him — endless, white-capped mountain ranges, wild, untouched nature as far as the eye could see — he is asked if he could ever see himself moving back to Italy.
“In a heartbeat.”
His first two professional contracts, after earning All-American honors setting for USC, were in San Giustino, Italy, as was his penultimate one, where he set for CMC Ravenna in 2015. He loved the people. Loved the food and the wine. Knew and loved the language, one in which he was fluent when it came to volleyball and proficient when it came to life outside the gym. But it was at his kitchen table in Ravenna that he and his brother, Maddison, had cooked up an idea. After injuries and an experience in Greece that was unforgettable in all the wrong ways, Maddison had determined he finished playing indoors. What if they gave beach a shot?
When Ravenna’s season finished in April of 2015, Riley and Maddison packed up their bags and left for Southern California. It would take eight years for the when or why or how Riley would find a way to return to Italy again, though suffice it to say, it wasn’t exactly how he would have predicted.
For as long as she was setting goals as an athlete, Carli Lloyd’s vision was always to win an Olympic gold medal for the USA. A standout for Fallbrook Union High in San Diego, Lloyd was recruited to set for Cal, where she would win virtually every award there is to win: Player of the Year, All-America, All-Pacific Region, All-Championship, Seattle Regional MVP, Muscle Milk Student Athlete of the Week. It took no time for those awards to continue piling up in the Italian League, where she signed with Yamamay Busto Arsizio, winning the Italian League and Supercup, winning the CEV Cup, winning bronze in the Champions League, winning the Supercup again with Pomi Casalmaggiore.
In 2016, she won an Olympic bronze medal in Rio de Janeiro setting for the USA. In 2018, she’d take gold at the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Volleyballmag.com…