Americans Alix Klineman and April Ross won the gold medal on Friday in women’s beach volleyball against Australia at the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
In women’s beach volleyball, the two Americans known as “The A Team” dominated Australia’s Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy, winning in two sets (21-15, 21-16).
With the win, Ross and Klineman bring the Olympic gold medal back to the U.S. The U.S. has won four of the past five Olympic women’s beach volleyball gold medals.
“To get a gold medal finally just feels so amazing,” Ross told a reporter while draped in an American flag standing beside Klineman.
“It’s amazing. It’s so tough. It was such a shot in the dark and for us to get here and do this with this kind of competition just kind of blows my mind.”
Ross, 39, is a three-time Olympian but this is her first gold medal. She also won a silver medal with Jennifer Kessey at the 2012 Olympic Games and bronze with Kerri Walsh Jennings in 2016.
It’s Klineman’s first Olympic Games and first medal. Ross partnered with Klineman, 31, in 2017 after splitting with Walsh Jennings. Klineman — a physically gifted volleyball player at 6’5” — had switched to beach volleyball just a few months earlier.
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