Olympics 2012: Lords and ladies of the sand - Beach Volley explained

"Michael Flatley gave us Lord of the Dance," bellows the announcer. "These are the lords of the sand!" Brazil are playing Germany in the women's group phase. The crowd of 15,000 hollers wildly. Four-second bursts of pop music roar from the speakers between points. On the big screen, the word 'SHOWTIME' is displayed in large, wobbling capitals.

Maybe Lord of the Flies would be more appropriate. Beach volleyball has lodged itself in the centre of London, a serve's length away from our seat of government, titillating us with its live flesh, unabashedly raiding the nation's trouser pockets. The top-priced tickets are pounds 450; how many copies of FHM could that buy?

I have long had a problem with beach volleyball; disdained the way it used sex to sell the women's game in a way it would never dream of selling the men's, the way the art of performing in a bikini in front of a whooping audience has been sold as some sort of glamorous lifestyle choice. A bit of fun: sure. A grand day out: fine. An Olympic sport? Give me a break.

Initially at least, the tableau at Horse Guards Parade does little to dispel this view. German pair Laura Ludwig and Sara Goller celebrate each won point by embracing and slapping each other all over, concluding with a hearty motivational pat on the backside. Breaks in play, meanwhile, see the Horse Guards Parade Dance Crew trot onto the sand. This is not, fortunately, a troupe of Treasury officials wiggling their buttocks and stripping down to their M&S thermal vests. Instead, it is a parade of scantily-clad, men and women wiggling their buttocks for an increasingly energetic crowd.

Then there is the announcer, who is heard, but never seen or named. Let's call him the 'Lord of Noise', for there is only one thing he wants. "I wanna hear you scream!" he shouts, and is deafeningly obliged. Think of him as a sort of Big Brother for the MTV generation.

So you clap and cheer for a bit, but soon you realise that the Lord of Noise is utterly insatiable. However many decibels you give him, he wants more. "Come on, let's hear you! Let's hear it for the rakers! World-class raking here at London 2012! Let me hear all 15,000 of you cheer, come on! That's what we're talking about!"

It goes on. "The more you clap, the more the sun comes out!" All totalitarian regimes incorporate some sort of pretence to divinity, and here it is happening in the shadow of Westminster Abbey.

The impression is reinforced by the menacing slogans displayed on the big screen: 'BOOM!', 'AMAZING', 'SPECTACTULAR', 'MONSTER BLOCK!' (a sort of biscuit, perhaps?), 'POWERFUL SPIKE!', 'PHENOMENAL DIG!' and (rather less bombastically) 'TECHNICAL TIMEOUT'.

The man we have to thank for all of this is Dr Ruben Acosta.

In his later years, Acosta was an unpopular figure, forced to resign from the IOC for siphoning a hefty cut of television deals into his own bank account and having ruthlessly extinguished all opposition within the FIVB governing body.

But until the Mexican was elected president if the FIVB in 1984, the sport existed largely in blissful obscurity, virtually unknown outside the USA and a few other strongholds. Acosta changed that. Not only was he a skilled organiser and administrator, but he provided what the sport had chronically lacked: political nous.

Acosta's first step was to move the organisation's base to Lausanne, right next to IOC headquarters, where he vigorously lobbied for beach volleyball to be taken seriously. An inaugural world championship followed in 1987, along with a world tour for men and women. Most importantly, Acosta identified the link between marketing potential and sex appeal. In 1993, it was welcomed into the Olympic family, from which point its growth has been exponential. "It used to be one of the sports people would walk by," says Misty-May Treanor, the double Olympic champion. "Now, it's one of the main attractions. Tickets sold out like that." She clicks her fingers.

Treanor has been defending her sport for so long that she has a ready answer to the bikini question. "It's kind of funny," she says. "When I was growing up in southern California, you wear bathing suits. I'd like to see someone show up at the beach in full sweatpants." Use sex to get the crowds in, use skill to keep them. "People are tongue-in-cheek with the sport," admits Treanor's playing partner Kerri Walsh. "But we don't care what gets you here. We're going to keep you here, because we're great athletes." "What about divers? What about gymnasts?" asks Treanor. "People focusing on our uniform, they say it the first time, and that's the last time they ever mention it. They change their tune once they come to our event." "It spreads from ignorance," Walsh adds, a note of weariness in her voice.

So does beach volleyball really belong in the same canon as Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali and Sir Steve Redgrave? "It's as it should be," Walsh says. "We have a really special sport. It's exciting, it's wholesome, but it's also sexy and dynamic and graceful. It deserves a stage, something as spectacular as this venue."

The venue, it has to be said, is spectacular - sorry, 'SPECTACULAR'. The volleyball, too, is of the highest quality. In a stunning second set, the Germans save nine match points against the Brazilian pair before finally snatching it 31-29. And it is while watching this epic encounter that a thought strikes me. Where else in sport do you see women leading the way? How often are women the star attractions and men paraphernalia? Much about the event may be confected: the glitz and the dancers, the Lord of Noise and the organisers' determination to play every pop record released in the UK in the last 20 years. But the sport is real. The athleticism is real, as is the drama.

"Growing up in California," Treanor explains, "the [players' association] AVP was strictly men only. The women were a sideshow. Slowly, it switched around. It's all down to the hard work of the women." Boris Johnson was among the thousands who visited yesterday morning.

I mention to Walsh that the British government bought more tickets to the beach volleyball event than for any other discipline at the London Games. Walsh misses a beat. "Smart government."