The Qatari pair seem to have emerged as the heavy favourites to win the men’s Olympic tournament, but when they lost the first set of their round of 16 match at Shiokaze Park by 21-14, nothing really seemed to be out of the ordinary. Because on the other side of the net were Nick Lucena and Phil Dalhausser and for them to win by a seven-point margin against anybody in the world is nothing out of the ordinary.
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Beach Volleyball
End of an era! Dalhausser & Lucena grateful for where volleyball has taken them
The legendary American beach volleyballers have played their last international match
Published 08:30, 01 Aug 2021
But when Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan started finding their way back into the match and edging ahead towards the victory, there was a worry. Could this be it? Could this be the last match of the legendary Americans?
“Internationally, for sure,” Phil Dalhausser confirmed in the mixed zone immediately after the match. “My wife would divorce me if played any more. I love the sport. It’s given so much to me! But I think it’s time to move on, try to spend more time with my family. One day I was just sitting in my room thinking, ‘I’m going to calculate how long I’ve been gone from my family.’ I realized I’ve missed like a year and a half of my kids’ lives. It’s something I’ll never get back. Now they are still pretty young, seven and eight, so I can hang out with them a little more.”
Phil Dalhausser says goodbye to international beach volleyball
“I am trying to digest the fact that it was probably the last international match we have just played right here and just how grateful I am to get to play with someone as great as Phil,” Nick Lucena told Volleyball World.
No one knows if there were tears behind Nick’s sunglasses at that moment, but it was definitely a tearful moment for everyone around.
At the age of 41, 2.06m-tall blocker Phil Dalhausser leaves behind four Olympic participations, decorated with a Beijing gold in 2008 alongside Todd Rogers. At the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, the pair won the title in 2007 and the bronze in 2009. In 2010, Dalhausser and Rogers were the FIVB World Tour season champions. In his World Tour career, Dalhausser has piled up an impressive showcase of 36 gold, 16 silver and 13 bronze medals, in addition to his shining longevity on the prestigious US national tour, where the records show 60 gold, 23 silver and 22 bronze medals beside his name.
Lucena and Dalhausser joined forces in 2015 and they have been partners ever since. As a pair, they have won nine gold, seven silver and three bronze medals on the World Tour.
Nick Lucena in Olympic action
Also 41 now, Lucena reminisced about the time they got into beach volleyball some two decades ago.
“We had no business doing what we’ve been doing for the last 18 years,” he said. “We were 23 years old (“two knuckleheads,” Dalhausser chimed in), sticking around not doing anything. We had no real-world skills. We were substitute teachers and we said, ‘hey, we’ll give this volleyball thing a shot’.”
Then Nick pointed to Phil and said, “Four-time Olympian! I get to hang out with him at two of those Olympics. I haven’t had the time to reflect. I’ve been trying to stay in the moment, but a lot of gratitude! I’m grateful for where volleyball has taken us. Can’t explain it! Two kids from Florida, who didn’t grow up in the sport, are here now talking with you, guys, about beach volleyball. It’s pretty sweet!”
“During the summers we played volleyball from March through September, travelled up and down the East Coast and out to California,” Dalhausser added. “And in the winter we needed to make money – substitute teaching, painting, whatever we could do to make a couple of bucks.”
Dalhausser spikes
They came to Tokyo make more that just the last 16, but things did not work out their way.
“We trained to put ourselves in a position to win this tournament, but we got dealt a bad hand,” Lucena said. “Phil is out of quarantine today. The timing’s awesome! You can’t prepare for being in isolation and not being able to do your routine that you’ve done your whole career. I am proud of how we competed today and throughout the tournament. I thought we played well. We played some tough teams. I thought we played well enough to win today, but they just played a little bit better.”
“It’s hard, because I felt that I was playing a really good ball coming up to this. The whole situation just wasn’t ideal,” Dalhausser summed up.
Phil Dalhausser
But as big athletes do, they prefer to leave the stage with grace, not with excuses, and gave full credit to Cherif and Ahmed for defeating them on the Olympic court.
“Hats off to Qatar! That’s a great team!” Lucena exclaimed. “But we are going to take a little bit of credit, because they did train with us for about four weeks before the Olympics, so we molded them up. Now we are just letting them loose and they are going to do good. I thought we played great. Just a couple of plays didn’t go our way. The first set was a test of character for them. Not too many teams have beaten them by that amount.”
Hats off!
“It was a confidence camp. We built their confidence up and it has backfired on us,” Dalhausser added. “They are the best in the world at this point. They made five finals. Pretty impressive! They are just a solid team. There are no holes. Both of them are good ball players, certainly favourites for the gold.”
Dalhausser is leaving the competitive beach volleyball scene grateful for what the sport has given him, but he is not leaving the sport behind altogether and is ready to give back.
“I got a little beach volleyball club where we coach kids. I want to give back to the sport and try to grow it in Orlando,” he said. “I actually have a lot of fun with that, especially with the younger kids, 11, 12, 13 years of age. I like to talk trash to them and run my mouth at them. And they run their mouths back at me. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to happen. I haven’t figured that out yet. But for almost 20 years I’ve used my body to make a living. Now I want to use my head, I want to use my brain. I have some things I like to do and hopefully that turns into a living.”
The end of an era
