Chase Budinger eliminated from Olympic beach volleyball contention in Round of 16

The USA beach volleyball team of Chase Budinger and Miles Evans has been eliminated from contention in the Round of 16 at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

The American team struggled in group play, losing two out of its three games. Because of that, it came down to a “Lucky Loser” game against Australia. Budinger and Evans won that and were able to make it to the Round of 16. However, that’s where the run ended, with the Norwegian team of Christian Sørum and Anders Mol beating them in two straight sets.

The Norwegians came into the match as heavy favorites, winning the gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and winning every single set they had in group play.

In the end, even though the American team was able to advance despite a poor performance in group play, it ended up costing them. Had the Americans beaten a Spanish team that isn’t expected to make a deep run, they wouldn’t have had to play one of the podium favorites in Norway and would have had an easier path to make a deep run. It goes to show the importance of those group play matches.

Within group play, Budinger and Evans were only able to beat a French team in group play before getting the Australians in that Lucky Loser. They suffered losses to the Dutch and Spanish before the elimination against Norway.

This team caught a lot of fans’ attention thanks to Chase Budinger and his story. A former NBA player, he played professionally from 2009 through the 2016 season for four different teams in the NBA. He also played overseas in Spain.

In 2017, Budinger stepped away from basketball to begin to focus on beach volleyball. He changed partners multiple times before ending up with Evans. Together, they qualified for the Paris Olympics late, in June of 2024. That made Budinger the first person to play a regular season NBA game and Olympic beach volleyball.

For his part, Miles Evans has had over 20 partners during his professional beach volleyball career. It wasn’t until 2023 that he paired up with Chase Budinger and would go on to qualify for his first Olympics.

Whether or not this was the last time Americans get to watch this pair compete at the Olympics remains to be seen. However, it’s safe to say competing in Los Angeles would be important to most athletes.

For now, in Paris, one men’s American beach volleyball team remains in contention. That’s the pair of Miles Partain and Andrew Benesh.