It is spring 2007 and, for Stein Metzger and Mike Lambert, beach volleyball and Beijing 2008 are in the air.

The 2006 AVP Crocs Tour Team of the Year is 16 months from the 2008 Olympics, and in the midst of qualifying. The domestic season starts this week in Miami and their first international event will be in June. The two American teams with the best eight international finishes between this May and next July will play on the beach in Beijing at the 2008 Games.

Lambert and Metzger, both Punahou graduates, have been to the Games before. They want to go back.

Metzger, 34, finished fifth on the beach at Athens with Dax Holdren. The three-time UCLA All-American has been the top-ranked player on the AVP tour the past two seasons, also earning Team of the Year honors with Jake Gibb in 2005.

The 6-foot-3 former setter can play with anyone and, apparently, win with everyone. Since capturing three NCAA championships, he has collected $658,000 on the beach, with 11 AVP titles and two overseas.

"It is his competitive fire," Lambert said. "He can just turn it on and become a competitive animal and want to win more than the other guy. He's been that way since I first met him in JV and varsity and Junior Olympics. He always found a way to win."

Lambert, 32 and probably the most imposing blocker on the AVP Tour, is the more mild-mannered mauler. The three-time Stanford All-American is 6-6 and has two previous Olympic appearances indoors (1996 and 2000).

"Mike is so physical and explosive he can take over games by himself," Metzger said. "That's something any defender is drawn to. You just have to sideout and do the job on your side and you have a guy who can come out of nowhere and demolish teams."

Lots has changed. Metzger swears when Lambert was Punahou's ballboy (the year after he transferred) "he could walk under the net without bending — he was that tiny."

And, until last year, the two Buffanblu alums only dreamed of playing together on the beach. Both believed a partnership would prosper, but their timing, and a series of great partners, kept getting in the way.

When Kevin Wong — another Punahou graduate — dropped Metzger, he hooked up with Holdren out of desperation. The match worked out astonishingly well. Then, in 2004, volleyball legend Karch Kiraly asked Lambert to be his partner. They were Team of the Year, with Lambert the tour's Best Offensive Player.

In 2005, Metzger had a window of opportunity to change partners, but Kiraly asked Lambert back for his 26th season on the beach. "You don't say no to Karch," Metzger said.

But at that year's King of the Beach event — the only week where players switch partners each match — Lambert and Metzger finally had a chance to play together again. They were convinced it could work and the deal was sealed when Kiraly advised Lambert to "find a younger partner."

Metzger made the difficult decision to drop Gibb and finally pursue the dream of going for the gold with his former ballboy. "I figured if I didn't do it now it would never happen," Metzger said. "So we made the decision to finally get together and go after a medal."

After a slow start, last year blossomed into a five-win season. They reached all but one semifinal, led the money list and established themselves, along with Gibb and Sean Rosenthal, and Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers, as legitimate medal threats. The U.S. men were shut out in Athens.

Lambert and Metzger are so serious this year they will play 21 straight weeks, mixing domestic events with seven European stops in places as varied as Berlin, Klagenfurt (Austria), Paris and Stavanger (Norway). World Championships are in Gstaad (Switzerland) in June.

"A lot will be determined this summer," Lambert said. "We need to do well, have good results at the World Championships and Grand Slams. You could even, potentially, lock in your berth as one of the two teams that go (to the Olympics) this summer.

"We're trying to peak in July. At the same time, the AVP season is important to us too — to defend and do well and win."

The life might sound exotic, but the grind — on the sand and across the world — is debilitating. Lambert and Metzger spent the past five months working with trainers and therapists.

There will be times the next six months that they spend more time with each other than their families (Lambert and his wife had their second child in the offseason). More than anything, that might be why this team works — as Metzger knew it would, even with the laid-back, guitar-strumming Lambert as his polar-opposite partner.

"In beach volleyball, you travel so much with your partner it's nice to have that chemistry and have fun," Lambert said. "You do a lot of waiting in airports, have meals together. If you don't enjoy it, the season would seem so long. With Stein, even if there was no tour we'd still be hanging out and surfing or whatever. It makes it easier, on top of the fact we're a good team on paper."

They have been a good team everywhere else, too. What they covet most now is an opportunity to play on the beach in Beijing.

OLYMPIC NOTES

Former Rainbow Wahine Karin Lundqvist is also on a quest to play on the beach at the Olympics — for Sweden. Her partner of choice is former Hawai'i All-American Angelica Ljungquist, the 1996 National Player of the Year. Lundqvist's original partner, Sara Uddstahl, was injured last year. Lundqvist and Uddstahl were 47th in the final 2006 Beach Volleyball World Rankings. For the past three months Lundqvist has been training in Brazil, with Brazilian coach Wesely Pinheiro, while Ljungquist plays professionally indoors in Japan. Lundqvist has been invited to play in a Brazilian tournament next week. She and Ljungquist will meet back in Sweden the beginning of next month to train for two weeks before their first tournament, in Singapore.

The U.S. Olympic Committee has re-appointed Punahou graduate Chris Duplanty to his position as Liaison from the Board of Directors to the U.S. Olympic Assembly. Duplanty was a three-time water polo Olympian (1988, 1992, 1996). He lives in Newport Beach, Calif.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.