A different type of spike. Kerri Walsh, the superstar American beach volleyball player who will be playing for Olympic gold on August 21, has suffered through a terrible summer of pain. She already took a brief break from the tour schedule because of recurring soreness in the shoulder that was operated on last November to repair a torn rotator cuff. USA Today reports that, in Berlin, two months before the Olympics, Kerri sought out a physiotherapist named Periklis Charpantidis. He’s Walsh’s secret weapon at the Olympics. Charpantidis, a Greek who lives in Athens, is in Beijing and performing acupuncture on Walsh’s shoulder twice a day, and it is feeling better each day.