Hometown Hopefuls: Kelly Cheng/Sara Hughes, California

Throughout the summer, in a series called Hometown Hopefuls, NBC is spotlighting the stories of Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls from all fifty states, as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, as they work towards the opportunity to represent their country at the Paris 2024 Games next year. We’ll learn about their paths to their sports’ biggest stage, and the towns and communities that have been formative along the way. Visit NBCSports.com/hometownhopefuls for more stories from across America as these Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls prepare for Paris in summer 2024.

The Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes beach volleyball partnership is like something out of a Hollywood script.

Both born in 1995, they were raised in Southern California, the sport’s spiritual home, amid the backdrop of Olympic beach volleyball debuting at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Now, they are the premier American beach team, tasked with extending a streak dating to 1996. The U.S. won at least one beach volleyball medal at all seven Olympics, including gold at six of those Games.

It’s not a stretch to envision Cheng and Hughes reaching the podium in Paris next year, then carrying that momentum into the 2028 Los Angeles Games. At the first Summer Games in the U.S. since 1996, beach volleyball will be one of the hottest events, both in popularity and temperature — held in a 12,000-person stadium on Santa Monica Beach.

Hughes, older than Cheng by seven months and shorter by four inches, grew up playing on Huntington Beach. Three-time Olympic champion Misty May-Treanor often practiced a few courts over.

“My older coach said, ‘If you want to be the best, you have to watch the best,'” said Hughes, who put a poster of May-Treanor on her bedroom wall. “So he