European dominance at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Finals
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A spectacular beach volleyball edition of the FIVB World Tour Finals has come to an end yesterday after five intense competition days on the sands of Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy.
The starting lineup of the tournament saw the top 8 teams/gender, according to the FIVB World Rankings, joined by 2 teams/gender given a wildcard, which meant Europe was represented by no less than eight teams in the men’s tournament and six teams in the women’s tournament.
The unstoppable Vikings
Beach volleyball superstars, Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum went into the World Tour Finals high on confidence off the back of becoming Olympic Champions in Tokyo and EuroVolley Champions for the fourth consecutive time but also towards the end of a grueling season.
However, they were also aware that this edition of the World Tour Finals was yet another opportunity to put themselves in the record books by potentially becoming the most decorated European team in the history of the World Tour. And so they did!
It was by no means an easy task for the Beach Volley Vikings, with plenty of bumps along the road, but they managed to reach Sunday’s Final and win against Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner from the Czech Republic in 2 hard-fought sets.
A 14th Gold Medal on the World Tour for the Norwegians and they are now the single most decorated European team in history and only the second men’s duo to win the World Tour Finals twice.
Completing the men’s podium were Christiaan Varenhorst and Steven van de Velde of the Netherlands with their third bronze medal on the World Tour.
Christian Sorum via Volleyball World“It’s just amazing! The final is always difficult to play and the Czech guys are a good team. They played really strong the whole tournament and deserve to be here. It was a great final and I’m just super happy to have won it”
Germany’s impressive record continues
Out of the six teams representing Europe at the World Tour Finals it was Germany’s Karla Borger and Julia Sude that managed to climb to the highest step of the podium in Cagliari on Sunday, thus claiming their second gold (third medal) on the Tour and Germany’s fourth title in six editions.
To complete the podium, the Canadian duo of Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes, reigning world champions, came in second while USA’s April Ross and Alix Klineman, reigning Olympic champions claimed third place.
Julia Sude via Volleyball World“We had a very tough season and I think after the Olympics we focused more on ourselves. We tried to find ourselves on the court again in the last highlights, the European Championship, the German Championship, and now at the World Tour Finals, I mean the best 10 teams of the world play here, we end the season with a win. It’s a huge honour even to qualify to play here and now we have the trophy!”
