Beach Volleyball

European men and women shine in Brussels with six medals

Futures in Europe

Article Sun, Aug 4 2024
Author: Guilherme Torres

European beach volleyball teams made great use of homecourt advantage again this week, winning all six medals in play in the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour event held in Brussels, Belgium.

Austrians Dressler and Berger won the men's tournament in Belgium

Teams from Austria, Israel, Poland, Finland, Germany and hosts Belgium made it to the podium at the Muntplein, but the European dominance in the event extended far beyond it as all eight men’s teams and seven of the eight women’s duos that appeared in the quarterfinals came from the continent.

Austrians Christopher Dressler and Tim Berger took home the men’s title as the second-seeded duo came out on top of a three-set (18-21, 21-19, 15-12) battle against Israelis Eylon Elazar and Kevin Cuzmiciov to triumph in their first tournament as partners.

Austria could have had a second team on the men’s podium in Leuven, but Polish Piotr Janiak and Jedrzej Brozyniak denied them that opportunity by beating Paul Pascariuc and Laurenz Leitner 2-0 (23-21, 21-16) in the bronze medal match.

Beach Pro Tour Brussels Futures

Lathi and Athiainen hug after a point won during the tournament

Playing in their first Futures event in the season, Finnish Taru Lahti and Niina Ahtiainen, who are currently ranked 27th in the world, made use of their greater experience to dominate the women’s tournament. In the final, the two topped young Germans Paula Schürholz and Janne Uhl to take the title with a two-set (21-19, 21-19) victory.

“After not qualifying for the Olympics, I took some time to reflect before getting back to training in July to prepare for the EuroBeachVolley. The last three weeks were very good and we leave Brussels with confidence. We had a very solid performance throughout the tournament and it’s always great to win at the international level.”

Taru Lathi
Finnish Beach Volleyball Player

Sarah Cools and Lisa Van Den Vonder made it to the podium in front of their home fans for the second time in two weeks as after taking bronze in Leuven in July, they repeated the result in Brussels, downing Germans Sandra Ittlinger and Kim van de Velde in straight sets (23-21, 21-15) to finish third.

From Brussels, the Beach Pro Tour heads to Brno, as the Czech capital is the next in line to host a Futures event in Europe this season, with the competition taking place from August 22-25.

The Beach Pro Tour Futures events in Europe are run by the CEV in close cooperation with Volleyball World and provide teams from the continent with several opportunities to compete and gain valuable international ranking points.

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