IT WAS easy to distinguish the players from the cheerleaders in the beach volleyball: they had a ball and wore bikinis bearing their national colours. As a sea of yellow-and-green shirts and flags gathered for the women’s final at Kallithea between Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede, of Brazil, and Misty May and Kerri Walsh, of the United States, the bronze medal match was a close-fought contest between Natalie Cook, one half of the winning pair at home in Sydney four years ago, and Nicole Sanderson, her new partner, and Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs, also of the US.
Cook had hired a success coach for her win in Sydney. He had made her surround herself with all things gold, including toothpaste and shampoo. Since then, she has dumped Kerri Pottharst, her old partner. Not a winning move. Having lost in the semi-finals to the Brazilians whom she beat for the 2000 title, Cook could not handle the stamina of McPeak and Youngs, who took the bronze medal two sets to one, 21-18, 15-21, 15-9.
After a bad fall, Cook spent the first half with her right shoulder strapped with something that looked like brown masking tape. A doctor was called just before the Australians pulled level at 1-1. The white bandage that followed looked more in keeping with a sport that relies on image.
As Behar and Bede strutted out for their final before a 10,000-strong capacity crowd, you could almost see why this is a sport whose World Cup tour carries prize-money of some £4 million and why the sand crawled yesterday with big-brand merchandisers looking for ways to flesh out profits.