Volleyball (On the Sand and In the Gym)

Band of Gold

Telling your husband you lost your wedding band in the sand is a pretty weak excuse . . . unless you’re Kerri Walsh. The gold medal Olympian blocked a shot in a match this week that ripped her ring off right off her finger and into the 17,000 tons of sand. Not knowing what direction it went, NBC slow motion footage showed the ring actually went across the net. Nearly six hours later, after a series of matches, volunteers armed with metal detector went digging.
"The problem is, we rake the court," said Peter Paul Hreszczuk, the FIVB official manning the metal detector to the Associaed Press. "We heard a few noises; a few were false alarms. When we found it, it was pretty much under the net."
A little bit of technolgy, a little bit of luck and one less marriage heading to divorce.

Keep it Together

A tattoo? Electrical Tape? Sharpie Marker? The odd black blob on right shoulder of beach volleyball start Kerri Walsh has confused many since she hit the sand in Beijing. The correct answer is that having recently had shoulder surgery, Walsh is sporting therapeutic tape from a company called Kinesio.

The novelty of Kinesio lies in a taping method that’s intended to minimize over contraction and facilitate blood flow for muscular disorders, lymphedema reduction and general rehab. While the tape itself does have certain novel features (ability to stretch to 130 percent) the odd patterns on Walsh’s shoulder are what founder Dr. Kenzo Kase has been pushing for 25 years. Unlike standard taping methods that restrict the range of motion (see: ankle) the Kinesio method is intended to provide some support almost by applying the elastic tap along the length of the muscle without minimizing flexibility. To get a tattoo of your own check out Kinesio Taping.

Additional reporting by Gloria Sin.