A friend of mine misplaced his wedding ring a few months ago and almost had a nervous breakdown before we helped him find it; losing that all-important band can make people do crazy things. That's why I'm even more impressed with Kerri Walsh's ability to focus after reading that she lost her wedding ring during Sunday morning's match against Japan.

According to the AP report, Walsh went up for a block at some point during the match and the ring flew off her hand. Fortunately, some broadcasters noticed what had happened, and were able to go back to the tape to show officials where they thought the ring might be.

Even with the video assistance, finding the ring amongst 17,000 tons of sand wasn't going to be an easy process. Especially when you consider that during each match, volunteers rake the sand to make the playing surface a little smoother, so that ring could have gone anywhere. After the day's matches had finished, volunteers combed the area with metal detectors until they located the missing band.

"The problem is, we rake the court," said Peter Paul Hreszczuk, the FIVB official manning the metal detector. "We heard a few noises; a few were false alarms. When we found it, it was pretty much under the net."

According to the report, Walsh was scheduled to get her ring back at some point today, and a meeting was set up with the volunteer who found it, obviously so that Walsh could thank them.

I think Kerri deserves a lot of credit for staying composed and finishing the match. I know if I lost anything that valuable, I'd either be digging in the sand trying to find the ring, or worrying about it constantly until I did. She didn't do either of those things, and that's why she and Misty May-Treanor are one step closer to another gold medal.

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