At 41, Kiraly Is Back for More
By MIKE BRESNAHAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Karch Kiraly was back on the beach, pink baseball
cap and all, playing as if time had slipped back a decade or
so.
He was reminded of his age by a group of hecklers--"Serve
it to the old man, he's weak, he can't hit"--but Kiraly, 41, simply
smiled. Three Olympic gold medals have a way of instilling a
measure of confidence.
It had been a long two years for Kiraly, who practically
disappeared from the beach volleyball landscape amid a rash of
injuries--shoulder, groin, Achilles' heel--but bobbed up to the surface
two weeks ago at the Huntington Beach Open. Kiraly didn't win Huntington,
but he and partner Brent Doble tied for third, a championship of sorts
for a guy who used to kick sand at anything less than first. Beach volleyball's
all-time leader with 142 tournament championships, Kiraly hadn't come
close to an Assn. of Volleyball Professionals title in almost two years.
He will get another chance at the Hermosa Beach
Open, which starts today with qualifying rounds and ends with
the main draw Saturday and Sunday.Kiraly and Doble were better
than expected at Huntington, advancing to the semifinals as the
eighth-seeded team before getting ousted by Canyon Ceman and Mike
Whitmarsh in a tight match.
"I think things were going quick and pretty well,"
Kiraly said. "We had a lot of good wins against some higher-seeded
teams. We were right there almost ready to beat Whit and Canyon, we
just needed a couple more points. I was quite happy with the level
I played throughout the weekend, [being] the oldest guy out there."
Whitmarsh, the second-oldest AVP player, turned
40 last month. He has seen plenty of Kiraly over the years, losing
to Kiraly and Kent Steffes in the gold-medal match at the 1996 Olympics.
"There's nothing wrong with Karch," Whitmarsh said.
"He may not be jumping as high as he used to or hitting as hard,
but he's smart. He has so much experience and he knows tendencies
so well. Players like that are one step ahead of other players. I'd
be surprised if he doesn't win a tournament this year."Kiraly hadn't
been close to winning anything since taking the Virginia Beach Open
with former partner Adam Johnson on July 30, 2000.Kiraly's troubles began
barely a week later, when he dislocated his right shoulder while trying
to qualify for the Sydney Olympics at a tournament in Belgium. He went
through surgery, then shoulder rehabilitation and was ready for the
start of last AVP season ... until he injured his Achilles' a few days
before the first tournament. He sat out all but the final two tournaments
and finished ninth with Scott Ayakatubby at both Santa Barbara and Manhattan
Beach.Kiraly is now injury-free. He played well at Huntington. The
next AVP tournament has been good to him in the past. He has won Hermosa
six times, including three in a row from 1996-98. Any talk of retirement
has been put on hold ... for now."I was happy to start off the year
healthy enough to play a tournament," said Kiraly, who will take stock
of his career after the final AVP tournament in September."I'll look
back on a combination of things. Did I have fun? Did my partner and
I compete well? How did my body hold up? We'll have to see how the tournaments
work themselves out this year."