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by JohnTawa
Eric Fonoimoana and Dain Blanton stood on the rain-soaked sand at Bondi Beach Tuesday afternoon on the verge of making history.
The American beach volleyball duo had taken the first game in the best two-of-three gold medal match against favorites Ze Marco de Melo and Ricardo Santos of Brazil, and led 11-9 in the second game, one point from the gold.
Blanton served the smaller Ze Marco. The pass to his partner Ricardo was good. So was the set.
But
the block was better.
In a burst of speed and power, Fonoi rose high above the net and roofed Ze Marco, sending the ball straight down into the sand.
Blanton and Fonoi followed the ball into the sand immediately thereafter, locking in a sandy embrace at mid-court, relishing a moment in time neither would ever forget.
"I couldn't believe what had just happened," Fonoi said in a phone interview from Sydney Wednesday morning. "It was all in slow motion. After the block, I watched the ball hit the ground and thought, 'What does that mean?' It means the match is over. It means we've won the gold medal and all the stuff we've been doing has paid off.
"A lot of people didn't expect us to be here, but Dain and I always thought we could do it. What a time to peak."
* * *
Mira
Costa head volleyball coach Mike Cook was scanning the television at his Manhattan
Beach home Monday night, searching for news on the gold medal match. Cook coached
Fonoi in the indoor game at Mira Costa from 1985 to 1987 and coached with him
at the school from 1994 to 1998. They continue to maintain a close relationship.
The telephone rang at Cook's house at about 9:45 p.m. It was a family friend who had been "watching" the match on the Internet. NBC wouldn't televise the final for another 22 hours.
"She said, 'He won! He won!'" Cook stated. "I was ecstatic."
"I think special people do special things," Cook continued. "It happens to people who really prepare themselves physically and have something special mentally. He put a lot of intensity and preparation into it. He did all the right things.
"The volleyball family at Mira Costa is really delighted."
Path to Gold
Getting to the gold medal game was no easy feat for the ninth-seeded Americans. In the four matches preceding their golden quest, Fonoimoana and Blanton avenged earlier defeats, withstood knockout attempts, took out friends and exorcised demons.
They began play in front of 10,000 sun-drenched fans at the Olympic beach volleyball stadium at Bondi Beach Sept. 17 against Germans Oliver Oetke and Andreas Scheurepflug, a pair they had lost to in two previous tournaments.
"Before [Fonoimoana] left, I told him the third time's the charm," Cook said.
The coach was right.
Fonoi and Blanton dominated the match from the first serve, hammering the Germans 15-7 to advance to the single-elimination round of 16.
Five days later, Fonoi/Blanton faced off against the hard serving Norwegian team of Jorre Kjemperud and Vegard Hoidalen, a medal favorite.
It was a battle with the Norwegians, who train in Hermosa Beach. They rocketed ace serve after ace serve to take an early four-point lead. The Americans chipped away, however, thanks to Norway's 21 service errors. A Fonoi dig and tip was the match winner, 15-13.
A quarterfinal match with friends, training partners and fellow Americans Rob Heidger of Redondo Beach and Kevin Wong of Hawaii was next. At stake was a spot in the semifinals and a chance to play for at least a bronze medal.
Heidger and Wong had taken a fortuitous route to the quarters. After losing their opening match to fall into the loser's bracket, they split the next two games, but advanced to the round of 16 on point differential. Dubbed the "lucky losers," Heidger and Wong got even luckier when the Mexican team they were set to face defaulted due to injury.
Fonoi/Blanton made sure that the lucky streak of their compatriots would end with them. They smashed Heidger/Wong 15-3 on Sunday morning, using their superior speed to reel off 11 straight points.
Fonoi described his team's performance as "flawless." Wong was equally impressed.
"To me personally, every other team we played against was in slow motion and these guys were at light speed," Wong said.
With a spot in the bronze medal match assured, Fonoi/Blanton took the court for the semifinal Sunday afternoon, knowing that a win would clinch a silver medal and a chance to upgrade to gold. Across the net stood Portugal's Luis Maia and Joao Brenha, a seasoned team which, four years earlier in Atlanta, had found itself in the same position only to lose its final two matches and finish fourth.
The match was tense throughout. It was deadlocked at 10-10 for 20 minutes before Fonoi cuffed one wide to give the Portugese the lead. The U.S. called a timeout.
What happened next was almost unbelievable. Claiming the Americans were too slow to return to the court after the timeout, the Australian referee red-carded Fonoi and Blanton. The point penalty gave Portugal a 12-10 lead.
The bad break fired up the Americans. Fonoi's big swinger produced a sideout. Then Blanton took over the match. He served an ace down the line. A cross-court ace followed, tying the match. Fonoi then blocked Maia for a point, giving the U.S. the lead. A Blanton kill down the line and his ace between the Portugese followed in rapid succession. Five straight points in less than five minutes gave the Americans the match and a berth in the finals.
Winning time
By Monday, Fonoi had begun thinking about gold.
"We didn't come here just to represent our country," he said. "We came here to compete and win a medal. We've accomplished half our goal. We'd like to have a gold medal now."
But winning gold was a tall order. Their opponents, Ze Marco and Ricardo, were from volleyball-rich Brazil and were one of the world's best teams. To make matters worse, they had beaten Fonoi/Blanton in their only four meetings, three times on the international tour in 2000. And in Ricardo, a 6-foot-8 blocker, the Brazilians had the type of player who could give the 6-2 Fonoi and the 6-3 Blanton huge problems.
Fonoi and Blanton came into the gold medal match loose. They way Fonoi figured it, they had nothing to lose. If anyone feels pressure, Fonoi reasoned, it should be the Brazilians because of the expectations of fans from a country where volleyball is second only to soccer in popularity.
It was cold and rainy when the teams took the court Tuesday. Early on, it appeared the Brazilians would dominate. They moved quickly to a 10-7 lead in the first game -- played to 12 points -- of the best-of-three final.
Then Brazil
surged to an 11-8 lead and appeared poised to take game one. But Blanton and
Fonoi staved off four game points, including one where Ricardo hit a perfect
set into the net.
The U.S. battled back to 11-11. Blanton made a diving dig of Ricardo's smash, sending it back deep and out of the Brazilians' reach. Fonoi blocked Ze Marco to get to within one and then served an ace to knot the score. They won the first game, 12-11, when Ze Marco's kill attempt flew wide.
"When we came back and won the first game the pressure was off us," Fonoi said. "That's the way we came into the second game, knowing they had to win to put us into a third game. Dain and I just let it all hang out."
Using the momentum from the game one comeback, Fonoi/Blanton opened up 3-0 and 4-1 leads in game two. They never trailed and repulsed one desperate comeback attempt after another. The Brazilians got as close as 10-9 but couldn't knot the match through 13 straight sideouts. Then, Fonoi tooled one off of Ricardo's block to give the Americans a match point. Moments later, when Fonoi blocked Ze Marco, the gold was theirs.
"The only way we played that well was to play against a team that good," Blanton told the crowd at Bondi Beach afterwards.
* * *
In Hermosa
Beach, Tim Cooper followed the match on the Internet from Fonoi's home, cheering
when Fonoi/Blanton did well, pacing nervously around the house during tense
times. The Mira Costa athletic trainer has trained Fonoi for seven years and
is one of his best friends. He's been house-sitting for Fonoi during the Games.
When Fonoi/Blanton scored the gold medal point, Cooper jumped out of his chair.
"I thought how awesome.
"Of all the people I know, I couldn't think of a better person to represent the U.S. in the Olympics," Cooper added. "His demeanor, the way he is... he's not selfish at all. He never tells people he doesn't have time for them. It's an honor to be able to work with him and be his friend."
An hour after Fonoi gained the gold, Cooper telephoned his friend in Sydney
"He was totally excited and thankful that he was able to accomplish this," Cooper said.
Fonoi's most exciting moment came on the podium during the medal ceremony.
"You stand in honor of the flag and what it means," Fonoi said. "It means you've accomplished something so special, not just for Dain and me, but for the country. We're proud to be what we are -- Americans."
The Road to Sydney
Winning a gold medal must have appeared as remote as a distant star to Fonoi and Blanton as they toiled internationally during the summer to score enough points simply to qualify for the Games.
Teams scored Olympic qualification points by participation in international events run by the FIVB. While Heidger/Wong played full-time on the FIVB World Tour, making their qualifying relatively easy, Fonoi/Blanton played a more limited schedule because of their commitments to the domestic Association of Volleyball Professionals Tour.
But even that schedule didn't sit well with the AVP. In June, it suspended Fonoi/Blanton indefinitely for registering without the AVP's permission to play in an FIVB event in Italy July 12-16, the same week the AVP contended they were contractually bound to play the AVP Muskegon Open in Michigan.
"In an Olympic year, we should be focused on playing in the Olympics, not on whatever agenda is going on," Fonoi said at the time. "Dain and I have already made compromises. It is a matter of them making compromises. There just haven't been any.
"So we're going to do the Olympic thing and when they decide - which is sad - when we get to play, we'll play."
The quest for a berth on the Olympic team continued into early August, as Fonoi/Blanton battled with the team of Karch Kiraly and Adam Johnson for the right to represent the United States. In Portugal in late July, a fifth place finish put Fonoi/Blanton ahead. Kiraly/Johnson responded the following week with a fifth place finish in Austria, putting them in front by 86 points with just one week left to earn points.
Fonoi/Blanton headed to Ostende, Belgium knowing they needed a podium finish to reach Sydney. They received some good fortune early when Kiraly's shoulder dislocation during the preliminaries forced Kiraly/Johnson to withdraw from the main bracket, but they still needed to play well to overtake them.
After steamrolling opponents in the first two rounds, Fonoi/Blanton came up against the world's top-ranked team, Jose Loiola and Emanuel Rego, in the third round. They had to beat the Brazilians.
"To get in the Olympics, I think you should beat the best," Fonoimoana said. "Going in against Jose and Emanuel, Dain and I had our work cut out for us. We knew what was at stake. Nothing was going to get in our way. Jose and Emanuel came out a little flat. We jumped on them early and ended up finishing them off."
The 15-12 upset of the Brazilians propelled Fonoi/Blanton to a third place finish, good enough to suit up for the U.S. in Sydney.
Digging for kids
In August, Fonoi said that going to the Olympic Games would work wonders for the Dig for Kids charitable foundation he formed in March.
"Because you have the Olympian name behind the non-profit, it helps a great deal when you approach people," he said.
Winning gold in Sydney should have sponsors lining up at the door.
"I knew it was going to be successful and now it will be," he said. "For all the kids who will benefit because of this, I'm really excited about it."
Dig for Kids is aimed at promoting excellence in youth sports and academics.
"I just felt it was time that beach volleyball had some sort of foundation to teach kids how to play and give them something to do besides regular sports," Fonoimoana explained. "We are going to Hawthorne and Inglewood and Gardena and Carson. We're going into the inner city schools and parks and recreation departments and teaching them how to play. I just want [kids] to get introduced to volleyball instead of waiting until high school or college to even see the game."
Pay off
At the AVP Manhattan Beach Open a month ago, where he and Blanton finished a disappointing seventh in their final pre-Olympic tune-up, Fonoimoana talked about following in the footsteps of brothers Toa and Kirk on the AVP Tour.
"I played every summer and was looking forward to the challenge of becoming a professional beach volleyball player. But I knew it was going to take a lot of hard work.
"Nothing's been easy out here. Everything's been a struggle. But it's all paid off."
In gold.