It’s induction week at the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The ceremony is Saturday. Six inductees will join the previous 161 players, coaches, administrators and leaders from 25 countries who have already been enshrined in the museum at the birthplace of volleyball. We have stories on all six, continuing with Larissa of Brazil:
It was truly “Acapulco Gold.”
October 30, 2005, a slugfest like no other, ever in the history of the game.
It was no less than the beach volleyball equivalent of Ali versus Frazier. A heavyweight fight to be sure. On one side of the net, the reigning Olympic champions, Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor, well on their way of an epic run as the greatest women’s team in beach volleyball history.
On the other side: The upstarts from Brazil, 23-year-old Larissa Franca and her powerful 22-year-old partner, Juliana Felisberta Silva. Entering the FIVB Corona Acapulco Open, each team had five wins that 2005 season. This late-October event would determine who the FIVB team of the year would be.
Befitting a meeting of titans at the peak of their powers, the first set was a back-and-forth affair won in overtime by the Brazilians, 28-26. And while that was thrilling, it was candidly just a prelude for the second set, which left an indelible mark in the “sands of time.” No mercy, no quarter. On it went, until the exhausted Americans pulled out a 42-40 win, the equivalent in one game of a two-set match.
But the two combatants still had a third set to go!
And in the third set, it was so much more of the same, the highest level of volleyball the sport had ever seen. At the very end, Juliana and Larissa, after five losses and no wins up to that point against the Americans, finally got the monkey off their backs, winning 15-13. An epic battle that lasted 1 hour, 40 minutes, probably the longest match in the history of the modern era.
“We gave everything in that match,” Larissa recounted. “All feelings and emotions were felt in a single match: Joy, sadness, tiredness, anger, fear, overcoming, confidence, ecstasy.
“How sport is wonderful! That match is recorded in the Guinness Book of Records, AND in my body, soul and heart. That’s why I can consider this game as the most epic of my career. Thank you volleyball!”
The May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings rivalry with Larissa and Juliana defined an unforgettable eight-year era when the teams met 22 times,…
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