Former Doherty volleyball state champion Haleigh Washington will experience a second first impression of the Olympic games later this month. Washington claimed gold with Team USA in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but the world looked very different back then. Held in 2021, the Tokyo games maintained the COVID-19 precautions of the time.
The Games were isolated and Washington's family could only view Team USA's triumph from watch parties stateside. The 2024 Paris Games figure to be a different affair, but one with its own set of challenges. "There were no fans in the area.
We were in a 40,000-seat arena in Tokyo and there were max 12 people at a gold medal match," she said. "And so, this (Paris) games is, while very exciting because it's my second, it's also very exciting because it's a new beast. It's my first real Olympics with fans.
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There's just so many more logistics that I'm thinking about having to juggle. I would like to spend time with my family, but I also need to be focused on the game. So where does that kind of mindset put me in?" While the atmosphere will be different, the mission is the same as it always has been, to win.
Washington has won at nearly every level she's played. She led the Doherty Spartans to a 29-0 season and a 5A state title her junior year in 2012. She set a school record for most kills in a single match with 48.
She was twice named Gatorade Player of the Year in 2012 and 2013. Washington continued her winning ways in college capturing a NCAA title in 2014 with Penn State. To once again stand atop the podium at this year's Olympics, Washington has remained focused, so much so that she's kept her family away from training sessions this summer.
The six-feet, three-inch middle blocker has played professional volleyball in Italy in the years since the 2021 games. After finishing her season with Savino del Bene Scandicci, she joined Team USA around the end of April. From there it's been go, go, go as the U.
S. competed in the Volleyball Nations League tournament. "Three weeks on the road we were in Rio, Dallas and Japan this year for the three weeks of VNL tournaments.
And it really was just that time to analyze where we were as a team," she said. Following the VNL, Washington and her teammates have been training for the games in what she compared to a 9-5 job, as the athletes are at the gym from 7 a.m.
to 3 or 4 p.m. Looking at this year's roster, which features several players from the Tokyo games, Washington sees the hunger in herself and her teammates.
"I think leading up to Tokyo we were in a bubble, so we (were one team, in one location for six weeks). And so it was a lot easier for us to discover our identity, because we spent so much time together," she said. "Now it's a little bit more of a challenge because we have a lot of people coming in.
We've had a lot of moving parts, people at tournaments, not at tournaments, traveling, not traveling. And so now we're in this training block, like I've been saying, and there's this hunger of like, 'Okay, what's going to be who we are, what's our identity, what's our identifier?' And as meta as it is, it's almost like that hunger is becoming our identity. That hunger to be like, 'Let's be better, let's be more.
'" As for her own hunger and desire to improve, Washington has been working on her blocking, being more dynamic in the air and stopping a wider range of kill attempts. When she and her teammates take the court in Paris, Washington is excited to represent Americans of every background and belief. "I don't always like America, but I do love America.
And in loving America, it means that I see where she is a falling short. I see where this nation can be better, I see where this nation has disappointed me and has broken my heart. But despite that, I still love this nation," she said.
"There are beautiful things that I try to represent when I'm in that USA jersey and it might not always be what the world expects when they think of America. But America is just so much more than this cookie cutter stereotypical mold. So it's an honor to represent queer folks in the USA jersey.
It's an honor to represent black women in the USA jersey. It's an honor to represent Colorado natives in the USA jersey. And so anytime I get a chance to put that on, I recognize that I'm representing something bigger than myself.
And I hope that we can someday become a nation that I can both like and love.".
