While all eyes are on Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Kerri Walsh Jennings can't wait to see what happens four years from now at a place that helped make her the beach volleyball legend she is today.
The five-time Olympian and three-time gold medalist is excited about the 2028 Summer Games being held in Los Angeles, an exceptional location considering her chosen sport.
Walsh Jennings hopes Santa Monica, the birthplace of modern beach volleyball, will host the 2028 Games.
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Beach volleyball legend Kerri Walsh Jennings poses with a Santa Monica Travel & Tourism ball in front of the Eiffel Tower. (Travel and tourism in Santa Monica)
Walsh Jennings, who partnered with Santa Monica Travel & Tourism ahead of the men's and women's beach volleyball finals in Paris, explained why this legendary part of Los Angeles is “ideally” the place where the world's best should converge in 2028.
“The sand is deep, it's very clean and it's right where you want to be because all the greats played there, trained there and cut their teeth there,” she told Fox News Digital. “For me, as a young athlete on the rise, Santa Monica was a big part of the journey to becoming great. Looking ahead to 2028, I know we're going to have four incredible teams representing our country – two men and two women. [teams] and two women.
“I can't imagine a better city to represent our great sport.”
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As Walsh Jennings put it, there's no need to sell California beaches to anyone as a destination, but “not all beaches are created equal.”
“In my humble opinion, the city of Santa Monica and its 5 kilometers of incredible white sand beaches are absolutely perfect, especially for my life as a beach volleyball player,” she explained. “I have traveled all over the world and competed in very iconic places, such as Paris with its Eiffel Tower stadium and Copa Cabana in Rio. But I can't think of a better beach to compete on, to play on, and for my family to play on than the beaches of Santa Monica. It's incredible.”
“As we look ahead to the 2028 Olympics, knowing that beach volleyball will once again be prominent because Santa Monica is literally the modern birthplace of beach volleyball, I simply can't think of a better city to represent our great sport.”
Santa Monica beach with volleyball nets (Kristen Beinke)
Nearly a century ago, in 1930, the two-person sand game, the modern form we view beach volleyball today, was born in Santa Monica. So Walsh Jennings isn't the only one who thinks it's only fair to see beach volleyball played in its birthplace, which is what Santa Monica Travel & Tourism President and CEO Misti Kerns is preparing for.
“Santa Monica has a long tradition of welcoming everyone from Olympians to beginners to play and explore our sandy shores. We join Los Angeles in preparing to host the Olympic Games in 2028,” Kerns told Fox News Digital.
“Santa Monica will be the perfect place for fitness enthusiasts to stay on the beach. Not only do we offer a culture of outdoor movement, but the destination offers a wide variety of options among our 40 incredible hotel properties, an abundance of restaurants with outdoor dining in our eight shopping neighborhoods and a variety of entertainment.”
Dining and shopping in Santa Monica are Walsh Jennings' bread and butter. While honing her skills to reach Olympic heights, she also enjoyed everything the city has to offer.
Aerial view of Santa Monica Pier (Travel and tourism in Santa Monica)
“When I moved there, it was like when you go to North Carolina and you go to the gym and you're like, 'Oh, Jordan played here,'” he said. “To me, Santa Monica is that… The best of the best in our sport played in Santa Monica.
“So when I moved to Southern California, I would train with Misty May-Treanor, my partner of 10 years. She grew up on the beaches of Santa Monica.”
That duo won three golds in three consecutive Olympic Games and are now part of the great history that the sands of Santa Monica have produced.
It's tough for Walsh Jennings to see the United States not return home from Paris with any medals in men's or women's beach volleyball, but she's confident the talent is there to change that when they're on home soil in four years.
Kerri Walsh Jennings attends the Parity Paris show at Opéra Garnier on July 28, 2024 in Paris. (Julien M. Hekimian/Getty Images)
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“I know we fell short in Paris. Nobody made it to the semi-final round, which is very sad,” she said. “But that doesn't take away from the greatness of those athletes. So I think the fact that Los Angeles is going to host the Games is going to create more enthusiasm in the athletes to improve even more, to strengthen themselves and take everything they learned in Paris and give their best in the arena of Los Angeles.”
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