Olympic Beach: USA off the podium for first time in history after Benesh-Partain loss

Andy Benesh and Miles Partain picked the hill — or sword, to use their parlance — they would die on in the Paris Olympic Games.

It’s a good word choice, sword. Their style of play — high passes, an on-two and jump-setting frequency that would make even Sweden blush — is high risk, high reward, the difference between winning and losing roughly as razor thin as the blade of the sword Benesh declared they’d live and die on in Paris.

On Wednesday evening in Paris, in a quarterfinal match...