Misty May-Treanor isn’t finished with beach volleyball quite yet.
The three-time Olympic champion who came out of a three-year retirement last year to play domestic AVP tournaments will continue to do so at the season opener in New Orleans this week.
May-Treanor, 38, will play with Jenny Kropp in a tournament that starts with qualifying Thursday and the first round Friday. NBC and NBC Sports Live Extra will have coverage Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET (full season broadcast schedule here).
May-Treanor does not harbor Olympic hopes. She would have had to start playing internationally last year to have any shot at Rio.
In 2015, she lost in the semifinals in two AVP tournaments with Brittany Hochevar and said after the AVP Championships that she would consider continuing to play in 2016 if she “got in shape.”
May-Treanor would not be the first U.S. Olympic beach volleyball star to play domestically long after the end of an Olympic career.
Karch Kiraly, who won Olympic indoor gold in 1984 and 1988 and beach gold in his last Games appearance in 1996, played on the AVP tour into 2007.
Holly McPeak, arguably the greatest women’s player of all time outside May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings, played on the AVP tour into 2009. McPeak won bronze at the Athens 2004 Olympics but did not make an effort to play enough internationally to qualify for Beijing 2008.
Todd Rogers, who is 42 and won 2008 Olympic gold, continued to compete through last season domestically and, sporadically, internationally but has said the Rio Olympics weren’t his target.
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