RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The collaboration between April Ross and Kerri Walsh Jennings goes beyond the Copacabana beach volleyball venue, beyond the California beaches where they trained for the Olympics and beyond the far-flung airports and hotel rooms they visited to qualify for the Rio de Janeiro Games.
The Americans also worked together with pen and paper to design their Olympic uniforms — sewing for gold even while they were going for gold.
"It was Kerri's idea originally to design our own suits," Ross said this week on an off-day from the beach volleyball competition. "She brought it up, and I liked the idea a lot. It's so cool. It just gives you more ownership of the whole thing."
With its two-person partnerships, beach volleyball is more similar to an individual pursuit like tennis or golf than a team sport like basketball, where the players are picked by a federation. So instead of a team sponsor that dictates the look and logo of the uniform, players can sign their own deals and choose their own gear.
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"We get a lot of flak about our bathing suits," Walsh Jennings said. "But we work really hard to make sure that they fit and they're sport-appropriate and performance-enhancing."
http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/sewing-gold-kerri-walsh-jennings-and-april-ross-talk-uniform-design
They did mention something about keeping sand from getting inside & collecting in the uniforms and becoming irritating...something the indoor players have little worry about.
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