Beach Volleyball

LONDON - Sarah Attar and Amy Atkinson finished last in their respective 800-meter heats Wednesday morning but both women still took great strides forward. Attar, a Pepperdine University junior who became Saudi Arabia's first female track Olympian , received a huge ovation from the crowd at the Olympic Stadium when she was introduced and an even louder ovation after she crossed the finish line. Her time was 2 minutes, 44.95 seconds, placing her 39 th among 40 competitors, but her performance requires some context.

LONDON -- The serve of April Ross kept on going and going, landing long on match point. Kerri Walsh Jennings watched it hit the sand and thrust her arms in the air, child-like delight on her face on this electric night. Three-peat achieved. The enduring duo of Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor won gold for the third time, beating Ross and Jennifer Kessy, 21-16, 21-16, in the London Olympics women's beach volleyball final Wednesday. It was an all-American meeting, a volleyball finale that could have been played in Huntington Beach or Manhattan Beach, not London.

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LONDON -- Jennifer Kessy and April Ross were getting a little sick of this rivalry. Or non-rivalry. The U.S. team had played Brazil's Larissa Franca and Juliana Silva nine times before Tuesday night's women's beach volleyball Olympic semifinal. They had lost all nine. But on the 10th meeting, amid a steady supply of rain, a victory finally came for Kessy and Ross, 15-21, 21-19, 15-12, at Horse Guards Parade. Kessy and Ross will play the U.S. team of Misty May-Treanor  and Kerri Walsh-Jennings in the Olympic final Wednesday.

The deficits were there, overwhelmingly and stunningly. But Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings kept coming back and pulled out a 22-20, 22-20 victory in a beach volleyball semifinal Tuesday against China's Xue Chen and Zhang Xi at Horse Guards Parade. The U.S. was down quickly in the first set, 13-7, but Walsh Jennings began to assert herself, piling up four blocks and an ace. One of her blocks put the U.S. ahead, 21-20, and then Zhang hit into the net to end the set. PHOTOS: Day 11 Olympic highlights The U.S. took a 12-8 lead in the second set but couldn't keep it, finding itself down, 20-19.

LONDON — The distance between the places they play beach volleyball and indoor volleyball in these London Olympics is less than three miles. They are also light-years apart. They play beach volleyball at a place called Horse Guards Parade. The beach is a concoction while everything around it is historic, important, landmarks of wars and heroes of peace. It is a little like putting a tattoo on the Mona Lisa. But it is temporary and no offense is being taken. The crowds of summer tourists would be here anyway.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Aug. 5 - 11 in PDF format This week's TV Movies     SERIES Shipping Wars: The cutthroat world of heavy-duty movers is the subject of this unscripted series, returning for a new season tonight with back-to-back episodes that follow Roy Garber, Scott and Suzanne Bawcom, and three other independent contractors (9 and 9:30 p.m. A&E). Beverly Hills Nannies:   In this new episode Amanda readies for a blind date by getting a colonic (9 p.m. ABC Family)

Every two years the Olympics roll around and amazing specimens of humanity like Michael Phelps make the rest of us feel like tree sloths.  The Winter Olympics are bad enough - downhill racers streaking like rockets, snowboarders and ski jumpers defying gravity, skaters making ice look like a dance floor instead of something hard, cold and dangerously slick - but the Summer Games have the added element of athletes competing with their bodies on...

LONDON - As night descended on center court at Horse Guards Parade, a gentle rain began to fall. In that moment, you could see it and feel it, the gloom that had settled over the American men in beach volleyball. Fourth-seeded Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal fell in three sets to 17th-seeded Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins of Latvia on Monday evening, marking the second time in four days that a U.S. pair had been upset. That means no American men will stand on the podium in this sport at the 2012 London Olympics.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Aug. 5 - 11 in PDF format This week's TV Movies   SERIES Market Warriors: Pickers Miller, John, Bob and Kevin visit Brimfield, Mass., home of the largest outdoor market in the world in this new episode (8 p.m. KOCE). The Closer:  A security guard and a veteran are found dead outside a home in a new episode of the mystery series (9 p.m. TNT). Miss Advised: In the season finale, Amy tries to get in touch with her vulnerable side in her new relationship, and a good-looking math teacher has Julia casting aside her checklist (10 p.m. Bravo)