Beach Volleyball's Bum Rap

Elghobashy and Walkenhorst

Every time the Olympics comes around, a lot of attention is paid to the beach volleyball competition, usually directed at the women's attire.

The image on the right has sparked a barrage of opinion pieces (like this one, and this one) about beach volleyball, sexism, Islam, body image, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

In this photo Doaa Elghobashy of Egypt is trying to knuckle the ball over Kira Walkenhorst of Germany. The Germans won easily.

I've been playing doubles in the sand for almost 30 years now, so I watch it because I'm interested in the sport. But lots of people seem to think it's just a gimmick to show off women's bodies. The sport has long been a punchline, viewed as some sort of soft-core porn.

Elsa and Liliana

But when the Spanish team of Elsa and Liliana beat the Brazilian team of Agatha and Barbara, they dressed nearly identically to Elghobashy. The Brazilians, whose country is synonymous with bikini waxing, wore the same thing.

No one wrote any editorials about this. No one talked about sexism, or religious strictures, or body shaming or any of that crap.

No, these women were covering their entire bodies because it was cold and raining. They wore clothing appropriate to the conditions. If they were to wear this during more typical Brazilian beach volleyball weather -- 95 degrees, sun beating down, high humidity -- they could collapse from heat stroke.

Wearing a bikini in hot weather isn't pandering, it's wearing attire appropriate to the conditions, just like the full body spandex is when it's cold.

Beach volleyball isn't the only sport in which this is true. Google women's marathon images, you'll find a lot of women are essentially wearing bikinis.

I've played thousands of hours of volleyball alongside women in bikinis, t-shirts and shorts, long-sleeved shirts and bunhuggers, in sweat shirts and sweat pants. I've asked women (including my wife) why they prefer skimpy clothing. Universally the reason is that they're more comfortable. They don't like heavy, loose, sweat-soaked clothing weighing them down, making them hot or tangling them up.

The last is a real danger: I've torn my shorts by catching my thumb in the pocket when jumping to hit; thumb dislocations are surprisingly common in basketball (which is why NBA uniforms have no pockets). Rugby players regularly break fingers when they get caught in jerseys.

Yes, it was bogus when the marketing guys who run the FIVB (the international beach volleyball tour) dictated the maximum size of the bikini that women can wear (seven centimeters on the side), while allowing men to wear t-shirts and shorts down to their knees.

Female players should be able to wear any sort of uniform they want, even if they disadvantage themselves like the Egyptians. The matter of individual choice is complicated by competition rules that require team mates to wear identical uniforms, but that's up to the team to decide.

The simple fact is, though, the vast majority of women beach volleyball players wear bikinis not to titillate spectators, but because that's they need to wear to play their best. They would wear the same bikinis even if the FIVB dickheads didn't tell them to.

I'm sure the programming execs at NBC consider the sex appeal of beach volleyball when they put it in prime time. But there's more to it than that: Americans invented the sport and have dominated it since the beginning.

In 1996 Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes won the first Olympic beach volleyball gold medal in Atlanta. Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana took the gold in 2000. Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers won gold in 2008. Misty May and Kerri Walsh did it in 2004, 2008 and 2012. And this year Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross (a 2012 silver medalist) have a very good shot at winning again.

Beach volleyball is more than scantily clad bodies. In addition to the action on the court, there's the home-town narrative, the struggles of having kids while competing in the Olympics every four years, balancing injuries and age (Walsh Jennings has three kids and is 37), the soap-opera quality of doubles partnerships breaking up and coming together, and the quest to get just one more medal.

All that makes beach volleyball a lot more compelling than watching Michael Phelps swim up and down and up and down the length of a pool doing some other weird kind of swimming stroke for his hundredth gold medal...