Olivia Dunne cheers on fellow LSU Tigers and Team USA beach volleyball stars Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss as they top Canada at 2024 Paris Olympics

By Alex Raskin and Associated Press

Published: 15:45 BST, 28 July 2024 | Updated: 15:48 BST, 28 July 2024

Olivia Dunne may not be on Team USA, but the popular LSU gymnast is most definitely attending the ongoing Paris Olympics.

The Instagram influencer and girlfriend of Pittsburgh Pirates star Paul Skenes recorded herself at Saturday's beach volleyball match: Team Canada's Sophie Bukovec and Heather Bansley against Team USA's Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss.

And much to the delight of Dunne, it was her fellow LSU Tigers, Kloth and Nuss, who came away victorious: 21-17, 21-14.

'Geaux Tigers & Geaux US' read a caption from LSU's Instagram page alongside of a photo of Dunne, Nuss and Kloth giving the school's 'L' hand gesture.

Dunne also pictured herself at the match on Instagram, showing Paris' glittering Eiffel Tower in the background.

Unlike the generations of Californians who grew up playing volleyball on the local beaches as kids, Kloth and teammate Kristen Nuss came to the sandy side of the sport late. After teaming up at LSU, they stayed in Louisiana, training in Nuss´ hometown of New Orleans.

And when the world's second-ranked team made its debut with a 21-17, 21-14 victory over Canada at Eiffel Tower Stadium in Paris on Saturday night, it was the first American beach volleyball pair ever to go for Olympic gold without any connection to the Golden State.

'We kind of said we wanted to rewrite the script, and kind of change that,' Nuss said in a recent phone interview before the pair departed for Paris. 'You had to move out to California. You had to live in California to make it into something in this sport. And I feel like we really done a good job of kind of changing that.'

Beach volleyball was made for - and made in - California, with its miles of sandy shoreline and weather that allows athletes to play year-round.

Kloth played indoor volleyball at Creighton in Omaha, Nebraska - another distinctively nonbeach town - and arrived at LSU ready to, and needing to, learn. Her only experience with the beach game was hitting the ball around with friends at a lake back in South Dakota.

'I wouldn´t even call it a beach. I would call it dirt,' she said. 'It was like concrete with a little bit of dust on the top of it, and we would just play indoor volleyball outside.'

Kloth managed to master the beach game quickly enough so that by her first full season at LSU, 2020, she went 27-0 with two different partners. In her second year, she and Nuss teamed up to go 36-0 - including a pair of doubleheader victories over UCLA and top-ranked USC.

And by the time she had her degree, Kloth also had acquired enough of a support system to want to stay.

'I was just thrown into this very different culture,' she said. 'And they were just very gracious in welcoming me and knowing that I did not have a family here like everybody else probably did.'