by Cheval John

When NBC showed the bronze medal game between the Brazilian duo of Julianna/Larissa and China’s duo of Zhang Xi and Xue Chen, I believed that they were going to show the gold medal match between Americans Kerry Walsh-Jennings/ Misty May-Treanor and Jennifer Kessy/April Ross right after that match.

Instead, they showed track and field at 3 p.m., which I didn’t care for at the time and then the men’s water polo match between the USA and Serbia, by which the men’s team got destroyed by Serbia .

Not that I didn’t like track and field, but I wanted to witness history.

I wanted to see if May-Treanor/Walsh would win their third consecutive gold medal at the London Olympics or get defeated by an up and coming duo of Kessy/Ross.

May/Walsh eventually defeated Kessy/Ross by the score of 21-16, 21-16 to claim their third straight Olympic gold.

It was the first time that competitors from the same country were playing for a gold medal since the inception of beach volleyball in the Olympics in 1996 when competitors from Brazil faced off for the coveted gold.

Walsh/May have excelled in tournaments and Olympic competition since they became partners in 2001.

They have been the face of beach volleyball and have grown the sport with their enthusiasm and domination.

Everyone expected them to be in the gold medal game.

However, no one expected Kessy/Ross to be there.

The duo have competed in AVP and FIVA tours since 2007.

They even knocked off the Walsh/May on September 7, 2008 to advance to the final of the AVP tournament in Cincinnati, Ohio.

They earned it the hard way by defeating Brazilian duo and No.1 Julianna/Larissa in three sets to make  it to the gold medal match.

But NBC decided to show the game in prime time, which ruined everything and once again cheated the audience out of history.

I was bound to find out the results before it aired one way or another through the internet.

Many people complained that MSN should not have showned the results of the match before the actual event aired.

In reality, they did what they are suppose to do: get the information out there as soon as it happened.

Some even suggested that NBC should have shown the event live and then show it again in replay for those who missed it.

That way, those that missed it, can at least see how they got to that result.

I wonder if the executives of NBC ever thought of that.