English and Kiwi teams claim historic gold medals in Cortegaça
News
Javier Bello/Joaquin Bello (England) and Alice Zeimann/Shaunna Marie Polley (New Zealand) emerged on Sunday as the eventual winners of the FIVB World Tour 1-Star event held in Cortegaça, Portugal, and more specifically at the High Performance Beach Volleyball Centre run by the Portuguese Volleyball Federation.
Salvador Malheiro, Mayor of Ovar, Sérgio Vicente, President of the Parish Council of Cortegaça, Felipe Pascual, FIVB / CEV Supervisor, Arnaldo Rocha, Director of FPV, and Henrique Gomes, Tournament Director, presented the medals to the top three teams of the competition.
Javier Bello/Joaquin Bello, an English team composed by two brothers of Spanish origin, won the first gold for their adoptive country after defeating 2-1 (17-21, 21-15, 15-8) the Portuguese João Pedrosa and Hugo Campos.
Joaquin and Javier Bello (ENG)“It was a very difficult match, as we were expecting it would be, especially since João and Hugo are two good friends of ours and play very well. We are very proud of this first gold medal for England and we will try to achieve another good result at the Budapest event, before returning home. We feel very English, but we keep our roots and family in Spain.”
Pedrosa and Campos, who now have two silver and one bronze medals from World Tour events this year, acknowledged: “It was not our best match, but we have to congratulate our opponents and friends because they played so well and deserved to win. Overall, the balance is positive as we managed to show progress throughout the tournament. Now we are going to play in Prague [2-Star event of the World Tour] and we want to achieve more of such good results.”
In the men’s bronze medal match, the Portuguese were stronger than the Austrians.
Reigning national champions Roberto Reis and Sebastião Leão Alves defeated the Austrians Jakob Reiter/Michael Murauer 2-1 (16-21, 21-17, 15-9). “It was a good match, but we are very tired. It is an accumulated fatigue, due to the end of the indoor National Championship and LIDL Beach Volleyball Championship season. Now our beach season is over and we can finally rest. Third place was not what we wanted but we are happy with the bronze medal here in Cortegaça.”
In the women’s final, the New Zealand team Alice Zeimann/Shaunna Marie Polley, who had progressed from the qualification tournament, managed to edge pre-favourites Brecht Piersma and Emma Piersma and snatch the gold medal – their first in events of the World Tour –, in a match in which they lost the first set (19-21), but showed their fibre by winning the second and third by clear numbers: 21-15 and 15-7.
Alice Zeimann/Shaunna Marie Polley (NZL)“We have been on the road for more than three months and our path could not have been better than the first place on the podium. Now let us enjoy the moment and then prepare to participate in the 2-Star event of the World Tour coming up in Prague next week.”
In the bronze medal match, the Spanish tandem Nazaret Florian and Nuria Bouza needed two sets only (21-17, 22-20) to beat the Dutch team Wies Bekhuis/Nadine Everaert: “Actually, we are super happy with the bronze medal, as we managed to defeat a pair who were playing very well and we knew it would be very hard to reach the podium. Normally, we only play in events of the National Championship and we had a lot of desire to play internationally. Although still with some restrictions, we are very pleased with the presence of the public and we leave this tournament completely satisfied.”