Kerri Walsh Jennings, April Ross complete perfect AVP season after wardrobe malfunction

By Nick ZaccardiSep 22, 2014, 7:35 AM EDT

Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross won the season-ending AVP Championships in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Sunday, completing a sweep of all seven AVP tournaments this season with a 36-0 match record and 72-4 set record.

Walsh Jennings, a three-time Olympic champion, and Ross, a 2012 Olympic silver medalist, defeated Heather Hughes and Whitney Pavlik 22-20, 21-17 in the AVP Championships final. Walsh Jennings and Ross are in their first full season together as partners.

“To have done it together as a new team, chasing big dreams, it feels really, really good,” Walsh Jennings said, according to The Associated Press. “We’ve grown so much on our push toward Rio [2016 Olympics]. It’s the best thing in the world to have the biggest target on your back. It means you’re the best.”

Walsh Jennings and Ross played in Huntington Beach with keys looped through chains around their necks. Walsh Jennings’ key had the word “breathe” inscribed, and Ross’ had “dream,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

The tournament victory didn’t come without a little drama. Ross’ bikini top snapped off during play Friday. The (Torrance, Calif.) Daily Breeze has the report:

She immediately hit the sand on her stomach while the crowd tried to absorb what just happened.

As Ross lay on the sand, Walsh Jennings trotted over to the sideline to pick up a towel so she could escort her partner and solve the wardrobe malfunction.

“It was a very dramatic moment,” Walsh Jennings said, smiling.

But they were ready for the contingency, since it happened during a practice this week in Hermosa Beach.

“It’s happened to us a couple times, so we were prepared,” Ross said. “I brought an extra bathing suit top, so we were good. Good thing my reactions are so quick. I think I did OK.”

Walsh Jennings, 36 and a mother of three, won her 124th career beach volleyball tournament. She’ll go for No. 125, with Ross, at the final FIVB World Tour Grand Slam event in Sao Paulo this week. They’ve won four FIVB World Tour events this season, twice as many as any other pair, but the new Brazilian team of Larissa and Talita captured the last two tournaments.

“By the end of a tournament my nerves are fried,” Walsh Jennings said, according to the Daily Breeze. “It’s great to have that problem, and I want to have that problem until I retire.”

Kerri Walsh Jennings, April Ross would not go back to old partners

Follow @nzaccardi

Jim Hines, Olympic 100m gold medalist and first to break 10 seconds, dies

By OlympicTalkJun 5, 2023, 6:06 AM EDT

Getty

Jim Hines, a 1968 Olympic 100m gold medalist and the first person to break 10 seconds in the event, has died at age 76, according to USA Track and Field.

“I understand that God called him home today and we send the prayers up for him,” was posted on the Facebook page of John Carlos, a 1968 U.S. Olympic teammate, over the weekend.

Hines was born in Arkansas, raised in Oakland, California and attended Texas Southern University in Houston.

At the June 1968 AAU Championships in Sacramento, Hines became the first person to break 10 seconds in the 100m with a hand-timed 9.9. It was dubbed the “Night of Speed” because the world record of 10 seconds was beaten by three men and tied by seven others, according to World Athletics.

“There will never be another night like it,” Hines said at a 35th anniversary reunion in 2003, according to World Athletics. “That was the greatest sprinting series in the history of track and field.”

Later that summer, Hines won the Olympic Trials. Then he won the Olympic gold medal in Mexico City’s beneficial thin air in 9.95 seconds, the first electronically timed sub-10 and a world record that stood for 15 years.

Hines was part of a legendary 1968 U.S. Olympic track and field team that also included 200m gold and bronze medalists Tommie Smith and Carlos, plus gold medalists Wyomia Tyus (100m), Bob Beamon (long jump), Al Oerter (discus), Dick Fosbury (high jump), Lee Evans (400m), Madeline Manning Mims (800m), Willie Davenport (110m hurdles), Bob Seagren (pole vault), Randy Matson (shot put), Bill Toomey (decathlon) and the men’s and women’s 4x100m and men’s 4x400m relays.

After the Olympics, Hines joined the Miami Dolphins, who chose him in the sixth round of that year’s NFL Draft to be a wide receiver. He was given the number 99. Hines played in 10 games between 1969 and 1970 for the Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs.

He remains the only person to have played in an NFL regular season game out of the now more than 170 who have broken 10 seconds in the 100m over the last 55 years.

2023 French Open women’s singles draw, scores

By OlympicTalkJun 4, 2023, 4:10 PM EDT

At the French Open, Iga Swiatek of Poland eyes a third title at Roland Garros and a fourth Grand Slam singles crown overall.

The tournament airs live on NBC Sports, Peacock and Tennis Channel through championship points in Paris.

Swiatek, the No. 1 seed from Poland, can join Serena Williams and Justine Henin as the lone women to win three or more French Opens since 2000.

Having turned 22 on Wednesday, she can become the youngest woman to win three French Opens since Monica Seles in 1992 and the youngest woman to win four Slams overall since Williams in 2002.

FRENCH OPEN: Broadcast Schedule | Men’s Draw

But Swiatek is not as dominant as in 2022, when she went 16-0 in the spring clay season during an overall 37-match win streak.

She retired from her last pre-French Open match with a right thigh injury and said it wasn’t serious. Before that, she lost the final of another clay-court tournament to Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.

Sabalenka, the No. 2 seed, is her top remaining challenger in Paris.

No. 3 Jessica Pegula, the highest-seeded American man or woman, was eliminated in the third round. No. 4 Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, who has three wins over Swiatek this year, withdrew before her third-round match due to illness.

No. 6 Coco Gauff, runner-up to Swiatek last year, is the top hope to become the first American to win a Grand Slam singles title since Sofia Kenin at the 2020 Australian Open. The 11-major drought is the longest for U.S. women since Seles won the 1996 Australian Open.

MORE: All you need to know for 2023 French Open

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

Follow @nbcolympictalk

2023 French Open Women’s Singles Draw

More: Olympics