About three months ago at the Doha 4-star, Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes told Volleyball World making the Olympics was THE dream. “We are knocking on the door and we are going to write our own story,” they said back then...
Sponcil & Claes: Fairy tale ending or fairy tale beginning?
The young American pair share their thoughts and emotions upon qualifying for Tokyo
Published 01:52, 03 Jun 2021
Three months later, THE dream has been achieved. And what a story they wrote making it a reality!
After winning their first FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour gold last week in Sochi, 24-year-old Sponcil and 25-year-old Claes jumped ahead of Kerri Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat in the race for the American women’s quota for the upcoming Olympic Games.
They were just 160 points ahead, which meant it would all be decided in the last qualifying event, this week’s J&T Banka Ostrava Beach Open 4-star tournament in Czechia. Specialists and fans alike got their calculators out to figure what was needed to finish with an Olympic ticket and geared up for a spectacular final showdown.
It was not spectacular, but it was sensational! Brooke Sweat and the legendary Kerri Walsh Jennings lost in Wednesday’s qualifications, which meant that Sponcil and Claes could start packing for Tokyo even before they played their first match in Ostrava.
“Oh my gosh! It’s unreal!” Claes exclaimed when the pair spoke to Volleyball World again the day after. “I didn’t think it was going to happen when it happened. I knew it was going to happen. I had so much faith in us, in our team and in what we are doing. But Kerri is an incredible athlete, Brooke’s awesome and they’ve been playing consistently well and won a few events since the start of the quad. That’s why I didn’t think it was going to happen yesterday. I thought it was going to come down to us and them in the final or something like that. We haven’t been looking at the points, so we didn’t know what they needed to finish or what we needed to finish. I’ve just been going out and competing.”
“How it came down to the wire is just a really cool story!” Sponcil added. “The coolest thing is that it came down to the last two tournaments and that was such a quick turn of events. It had been them in second place and us in third for about two and a half years. But we rode it out, stayed together and had faith. The hardest thing was to stick together and not listen to the noise, because on Instagram and all socials there were points, calculations and all that stuff. It was so hard to dodge it. It was so hard not to read the articles, but I think we did a good job just staying within ourselves and taking it one point at a time, like we said in Doha. So it’s been a fairy tale ending...”
“...or a fairy tale beginning!” Claes jumped in.
They watched Walsh Jennings and Sweat’s qualifier. They were in the unfortunate situation of having to root against their fellow Americans, which probably and logically they did. And when the Dutch team came out on top, Sarah and Kelly could celebrate their dream coming true.
“It’s a pretty weird feeling having to root against fellow Americans,” Claes said. “I think what happened yesterday just proves even more that everybody is good out here and everyone can go and have an amazing day. It’s not that they let off the gas; the Netherlands just had a better day. I think the Tour is hard. It’s a grind and we’ve all experienced it. But that’s why we love it!
“We have so much respect for Kerri! She and Misty May paved the way. We’ve been watching them since we were little kids and we look up to them so much. These past few months a lot of people have been talking about the passing of the torch, and that’s kind of how it feels, the next generation coming up... So much respect for Brooke too!”
“I am just so excited that it was such a tight race,” Sponcil said. “We were trailing in third place all along. They gave it all they got till the end and we happened to pass them in the very last second. I am never going to forget that! That’s how tight this race was. It wasn’t a blowout; it wasn’t like everyone knew for a year, and I think that’s what’s special. The Olympics is just a month and a half away and we’ve just found out. It’s so crazy!”
Of course, the young Americans are very excited about the Olympics! So much so that it will be a challenge for them to stay focused on the matches they have to play in Ostrava. Still, they took out their first main draw opponents, Poland’s Kinga Wojtasik and Katarzyna Kociolek, in straight sets, despite trailing for a while in the second.
Claes and Sponcil trying to stay focused in Ostrava
“Just trying to be present at this tournament is really hard right now,” Sarah said.
“It’s really hard! It distracted me so much in this match already. I feel such a high from our first World Tour win, qualifying for the Olympics, so many people reaching out, crying phone calls with our parents and our friends... It was pretty spectacular when we got the news! It’s so hard not to feel all these feelings. I’m still just shaking from the news of qualifying... I think it’s going to be a challenge, but we talked about it a lot, yesterday before we went to bed, and this morning, about about how we are going to allow ourselves to feel all these feelings, but we’re just going to go out on the court, fight together and do the best that we can, exactly what we’ve been doing this entire quad. We qualified and it shows that that’s the mindset that we need going into matches.”
