AVP player is guest speaker at annual sports and fitness awards ceremony

It was girls’ night out on Tuesday night at Drawbridge Inn in Fort Mitchell, Ky., as an impressive collection of talented female athletes and coaches gathered for the 13^th annual Sports and Fitness Awards Ceremony hosted by the Greater Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Women’s Sports Association.

Pro Beach Volleyball star Elaine Youngs was the guest speaker at the 13^th annual GCNKWSA awards banquet.

Youngs was in town for the entire day, making several appearances on local television and calling in to a radio program.  She also made stops at Cincinnati Sports Medicine and GE Transportation.

Youngs, or “EY” as she’s best known on the sand, was named 2002 AVP MVP, Best Offensive Player and Best Blocker, but says her greatest accomplishment was winning the Bronze Medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens alongside her former partner Holly McPeak.  The two made history as the first U.S. women to medal in beach volleyball.

She used the inscription on the back of her Bronze Medal as the theme for her speech – “It’s not about the destination but about the journey.”

Youngs did not even start playing volleyball until her sophomore year of high school and through some tough times and adversity eventually landed at UCLA where she went on to become a four-time All-American and earned a degree in history.

Before her transition to the beach, EY spent three years on the National Indoor Team and competed at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.  She went on to live in Rome and played in an Italian professional indoor league and then moved to Ankara, Turkey to play indoor professionally for an additional year.

In 2005, Elaine and new her partner Rachel Wacholder were the only team to beat Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, ending the gold medalists’ 50-match win streak at the AVP Cincinnati Open, where she returns this year on Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at Linder Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio, to defend her title.

The 2006 season marks EY’s 10th year playing professional beach volleyball. She has won at least one title in eight of the nine seasons she has played and for seven straight years. She currently ranks fourth among U.S. women in international victories.

“I just feel really blessed to do what I do for a living,” she told the crowd. “Sports are so great for women and I’m a true testament to that.”

Previous speakers at the GCNKWSA awards banquet include Bonnie Blair, Janet Evans, Nancy Lieberman-Cline, Mary Lee Tracy, Dot Richardson, Cynthia Cooper, Gail Devers, Amanda Borden, Nell Fortner, Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, and Carla Overbeck, and Tamika Catchings.