In the fantastic atmosphere of the Eiffel Tower Stadium created by the thousands of French and American fans, and not only, Miles Evans & Chase Budinger upset home favourites Youssef Krou & Arnaud Gauthier-Rat in straight sets to celebrate a dream Olympic debut at the Paris 2024 beach volleyball tournament as the third competition day unfolded in the French capital on Monday.

In a Pool F game, the 19^th-seeded Americans dominated on the court and produced an emphatic 2-0 (21-14, 21-11) victory, putting a stop to the French duo’s three-game winning streak in the head-to-head series. While the two sides achieved the same number of aces, three per team, Evans & Budinger completely owned the net and outplayed the opponents in attack (19-12 in spike kills) and especially in blocking (6-0 in stuffs). Evans led the way with 15 points, including two kill blocks, while Budinger delivered the other four stuffs and all three of the team’s aces to finish with a 13-point tally.

“It's one of the best starts we could imagine,” 34-year-old Evans told the FIVB after the game. “I had all these bad scenarios in my head going into this match. I am super thankful we were able to overcome that. We came out strong and it looked like we were a little more composed than they were. I think our game plan went our way and our coach, Chase and I executed it in a great way. I thought we passed really well and handled a lot of the nerves.”

“They beat us the last three times in a row, so because of that we knew we had to come out strong,” 36-year-old Budinger added. “They had that leverage over us. I thought we did a great job getting out to a quick start.”

When former NBA star Budinger switched from professional basketball to professional beach volleyball to compete on the FIVB World Tour some six years, he said in an FIVB interview, “hopefully one day I will be able to play in the Olympics, I am always a dreamer and a goal-setter.”

So here he is, six years later, making a successful debut at Paris 2024. Was it everything he had imagined it would be?

“Yes, definitely! All the hard work has paid off. I have been grinding every single day, finding the right partner, finding the right coach, dedicating my craft to the sport and just trying to get better, so I could compete against the best players in the world. It took me six years, it took me a long time to finally achieve this goal and I am here competing at the Olympics. And there is no better feeling!”

“Big respect to a player, who was able to shift from one sport to another, from the NBA to Olympic-level beach volleyball!” French opponent Gauthier-Rat said about Chase Budinger. “From my perspective, he was the only composed player of the four on the court. The rest of us were more stressed and feeling more pressure, while he was most relaxed, dealt with the emotions better and that made the difference.”

In the other Pool F first-leg match on Monday, seventh-seeded Stefan Boermans & Yorick de Groot of the Netherlands spoiled Pablo Herrera’s start to his record-breaking sixth Olympic appearance by beating him and his partner Adrian Gavira in a 2-0 (21-15, 21-15) sweep. De Groot led the way with 15 points, while Herrera scored 14 times for the 18^th-seeded Spanish team.

For their next match in Paris, Evans & Budinger will face Boemans & De Groot on Tuesday at 20:00 local time (18:00 UTC).

“They are a very strong opponent. So we’ll go back, we’ll recover and we have got to just switch our mindset to the next game,” said Budinger. “That’s how the sport is. It took the last few weeks of really focusing on this first match, but we have to switch our mindset to the next game now and really just put all our energy into that.”

Olympic Games Paris 2024 Beach Volleyball: schedule and results

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