Beach Volleyball at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games:

The two favored teams were the defending gold medalists, Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos (BRA) and the American pair of Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers, the reigning World Champions. But in their first pool match, Dalhausser and Rogers were defeated in straight sets by the unheralded Latvians, Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Mārtiņš Pļaviņš. But winning their next two matches in Pool B, Dalhausser and Rogers made it to the elimination rounds, even leading their pool after Samoilovs and Pļaviņš lost a later match. Rego and Ricardo had no such problems, winning all their pool matches easily. Dalhausser and Rogers made it to the semis, and easily defeated the Georgian pair of Geor/Gia (you read that correctly – they were Brazilian émigrés who had been recruited to play for Georgia). Rego and Ricardo faced their countrymen, Fabio and Marcio, and were beaten in two close sets. The final saw Rogers and Dalhausser win a closely fought first set, 23-21, but Fabio and Marcio came back to win the second set, 21-17. But that was it. In the deciding set, Rogers and Dalhausser trounced the Brazilians, 15-4, to win the gold medal.