Professional beach volleyball player Misty May-Treanor parlayed her ability behind the net into international celebrity with an extensive series of record-breaking championship wins in the early 2000s, culminating when she and Kerri Walsh co-won the gold medal in their sport at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. A native of Los Angeles, CA, May-Treanor grew up in sunny Costa Mesa and attended Long Beach State as a kinesiology major. Meanwhile, the young woman participated in NCAA Volleyball and battled her way to the 1998 Championships, scoring a well-publicized victory against Penn State and the NCAA Championship Co-MVP title.
After college, May-Treanor devoted her time almost exclusively to championship volleyball; she first partnered up with Holly McPeak, entering the international spotlight via a stunning performance at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games that witnessed the pair ranking fifth and gave May-Treanor her first five career wins. It was alongside Walsh, however, that May-Treanor scored her greatest coups. In addition to their 17 wins at the 2004 Olympics, they enjoyed a winning streak of 89 matches from 2003 to 2004 and won a series of 50 back-to-back victories from the 2004 Olympics into the summer of 2005.
In 2008, at the Beijing Olympics, May-Treanor again won gold, making them the first beach volleyball team to repeat a gold medal victory. Shortly thereafter, fresh off of her Olympic win, May-Treanor participated as a contestant in season seven of ABC's popular competition-based reality series Dancing with the Stars. Producers paired her up with professional dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy.
In 2012 she again captured gold at the London games, which she announced would be her last international competition.