Karch Kiraly announced his USA women’s Olympic team on Monday and Wednesday took a break from the Volleyball Nations League in Rimini, Italy, to join us and talk all about his decisions and the squad ahead of the Tokyo Games next month.
Among the topics we covered — and we covered a lot — was the decision to keep Jordyn Poulter and Micha Hancock as the setters and leave Lauren Carlini off the roster. Kiraly addressed it head on.
“We made the best decision we could but I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who are upset with us or angry with us or frustrated with us,” Kiraly said. “You could make good arguments about any of those three and it’s just difficult that we only get to choose two.”
And about being undefeated through nine matches in the VNL, “Just take it with a grain of salt. 9-0 is nothing to be crazy about.”
Kiraly also talked about the implications of COVID before the Olympics, and had high praise for libero Justine Wong-Orantes.
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Let’s hope Karch retires after we fail to medal
This post didn’t age well
Actually Carlini did win a Champions League with Novara, & was key in the Olypmic Qualifier. Hmm.. oh well. Thompson & Washington are great additions.
What don’t you like about the roster? I’m pretty sure you were not in the gym at any of the practices. Thinking your favorite player from college should be on the roster is delusional and that’s what would lead to a failure to medal.
Go Team USA
love karch and wish them best wishes for the Olympics! he has forgotten more about volleyball, than 95%of the world’s vb fans volleyball fans think they know; he knows the players well, and does a lot of research on the game!