Their first two Olympic matches were a breeze for former LSU beach volleyball players Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth.
Their last match of pool play brought a huge storm, with lightning crackling in the sky over the Eiffel Tower adjacent to its namesake stadium where they played. Officials were forced to clear the stands except for a handful of observers — though U.S. basketball great LeBron James, who watched from a VIP section high above the sand, got to stay.
To say there were distractions and adversity galore for the Americans would have been an understatement as they tried to clinch Pool B by rallying to win the match in a decisive third set through it all against China.
“We always take adversity and we just run with it, because there’s nothing you can do about it,” Kloth said. “You can’t change the weather. Nobody can make it go away. You just have to deal with it.”
Nuss and Kloth dealt with the weather, the delays and, of course, the Chinese duo of Xue Chen and Xia Xinyi. They rebounded from their first set loss of the Olympics by a 21-15 score to win the second set 21-16 then take
