Åhman and Hellvig win third gold of the season in Ostrava
Beach Pro Tour
David Åhman and Jonatan Hellvig’s excellent form in 2024 continued to show this week in Ostrava, Czechia, as the two-time European champions took gold at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event held in city, which also had European duos taking silver and bronze.
The winners of Elite16 events held in Tepic, Mexico, and Espinho, Portugal, earlier this season, the Swedish are the top team in the FIVB World Rankings and hold an impressive 92% winning percentage for the season, having prevailed in 23 of the 25 international matches they played in 2024, making it to the final of each of the four events they played.
In Ostrava, the Swedish stars were nearly perfect, getting victories in each of their six matches and dropping just one set. In the gold medal match, they met the team that prevented them from winning the Doha Elite16, in March, Dutch Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot, and defeated them 2-0 (21-19, 21-18) to take the top spot of the podium this time.
David Åhman“We knew they had played very well the last time we played them, so we wanted a rematch and now we got it. They played incredibly well again and it was such a tough match, but it feels amazing now.”
Swedish Beach Volleyball Player
Back on the sand for the first since March, Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum finished fourth in Ostrava, falling to Americans Andy Benesh and Miles Partain in the two-set (21-15, 21-14) bronze medal match. The Norwegians were forced to take a break in their season when Mol broke a bone on his left foot in March and needed to have surgery.
Europe was also represented at the podium of the women’s tournament in Ostrava, with Latvians Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova taking bronze – the two-time European champions secured their spot in the top three with a sweep (21-18, 21-19) of Brazilians Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa and Ana Patrícia Ramos.
The result made the Latvians win a medal for a second-straight week on the Beach Pro Tour as they had taken silver last week at the Challenge tournament held in Stare Jablonki, Poland.
Gold in Ostrava went to Americans Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, with Canadian Olympians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson taking silver.
The Beach Pro Tour will now have a three-week break until its next major tournament, the traditional Gstaad Elite16, which will take place in the Swiss Alps from July 3-7.