Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk take matching philosophies into new beach partnership: "We're pushing each other"
The American beach volleyball duo teamed up earlier this year and want to up their game leading into Paris 2024: "We want to go there and win," they said in an exclusive interview.
Beach Volleyball
It was just about five years ago, in May of 2018, that beach volleyball veterans Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk could say they played on the same team for the first time.
But instead competing side-by-side on the sand, Bourne and Schalk were donning headsets for an event broadcast in Manhattan Beach, California, with Bourne sitting out as he a chronic inflammatory muscle disease he had been diagnosed with and Schalk sidelined while transitioning his competitive allegiance from Canada to the U.S.
"Dream team," wrote Schalk on an Instagram post of Bourne’s, where Tri had said “it was nice to be on the same team as Chaim after having so many great battles on the court.”
Earlier this year, that broadcast duo made its beach "dream" official: Bourne and Schalk were finally partnering up on the court itself, with the goal of becoming one of the best teams in the world – with thoughts of the Paris 2024 podium swirling.
Tri Bourne & Chaim Schalk hail “refreshing change”
The move, Bourne says, is a strategic one for him, as the 6-foot-6 (198cm) 33-year-old was ready to venture back to the net as a blocker following a four-year-long partnership with Trevor Crabb.
“I knew what Chaim was capable of,” Bourne told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview this week, where the two are set to compete in the qualifying event of the exclusive Uberlândia Elite16 in Brazil.
“I think we meshed in terms of work ethic and our philosophies of how we wanted to create a team and go about our business. So it was like, ‘Let's try something new and go at it together.’”
The matching philosophies is what sold Bourne and Schalk, who just turned 37, the most: The new duo has set out training together both on and off the sand, while also going to a sports psych with one another in a move to quell any early issues.
“It's been a refreshing change for me, too,” said Schalk, a Rio 2016 Olympian for Canada. “So far, every week we've gotten better and better. That shows how much we're pushing each other all the time.”
“Working together with a sports psych has been really good because we have open, honest conversations about where we’re at, what we're thinking and how we're feeling,” Schalk continued. “It opens the dialogue... and that's the main thing: Any partnership in beach volleyball is very much like a relationship; you want to keep everything flowing.”
“Seeing a sports psych together is to help this relationship and help us solve problems quicker,” Bourne added.
“At this point in our careers, there's only one thing left to do, which is be a top, top-tier team in the world... even reaching the very top of the world rankings. Those are the kind of things that excite us and get us motivated to work hard.”
Bourne/Schalk want to go deep at Paris 2024
Beach volleyball fans are well aware that such heights are within the grasp of these two, with Bourne and his previous partner, Crabb, having been named the 2022 AVP Team of the Year.
That duo, however, fell short in its bid to qualify for the Olympic Summer Games Tokyo 2020 (in 2021), with Bourne getting the call-up to compete at the Games with Jake Gibb after Trevor’s brother, Taylor Crabb, tested positive for Covid-19. (Follow all that?!)
While he wears his “Olympian” badge proudly, Bourne admits that what unfolded leading into and during Tokyo has only motivated him further: “I’m still pissed off about not qualifying, not going with my team,” he said. “I still have that hunger where I want to prove to myself that I can qualify for the Olympics.”
“What I proved to myself [in Tokyo] is that I belong on that stage,” he added. “That’s so valuable now; I know that I’ll perform and rise to the occasion [in Paris]. I gained confidence and am better off because of that opportunity.”
This week at the Elite16, which is a Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour stop, the team has a chance to test itself against the best of the best, including reigning Olympic champions and world No. 1 Anders Mol and Christian Sorum of Norway.
Bourne and Schalk know that the road to Paris is long and twisting (and sandy!), but as they work their way to qualify over the next 14 months, the endgame isn’t just that – it’s much more.
“Eighty percent of the battle is to qualify... but qualifying isn’t just the goal,” Schalk shared. “We want to go there and win. Both of us have that desire and edge. Putting this team together, we have the values, we have the strength... we’re putting ourselves in a situation where we can match up with any top team in the world and beat them.“
Added Bourne: “Going to the Olympics and winning medals, that's the stuff that motivates us now.”
Bourne faces down chronic disease
While they both have been through peaks and valleys in their respective careers, it is Bourne who was forced out of the game for nearly two years from 2016-18 when he was diagnosed with a chronic inflammatory muscle disease known as dermatomyositis.
The doctor’s loudest order: Rest. Since returning, however, he has had to look after himself differently.
“We still kind of treat it like I have a dormant autoimmune disease,” Bourne explained. “I learned a lot during that time on how to manage my body and really just treat it even better than I already had. I’m still managing it.”
Bourne, who is co-host with of the popular beach volleyball podcast, Sandcast, with Travis Mewhirter, takes perspective from his forced time away from the sport.
“A lot of times the biggest challenges that we're faced with end up giving us the most value in life,” he reflected. “It was interesting that [Schalk and I] both sat out and had certain challenges around the same time, but I think that lit a little bit more of a fire under us.”
It was during those parallel breaks in a tented TV booth that the two joked about a partnership that they didn’t think would ever happen.
Now, it has.
“I was like, ‘I’m waiting for Tri to get healthy and then we’re going to team up,’” Schalk remembered. “It’s funny that it ended up actually happening five years later.”