Europeans win four medals at Cirò Marina Futures

European teams had another successful weekend to celebrate at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour as duos from the continent won four of the six medals in play at the Futures event that took place in Cirò Marina, Italy, on Sunday, with the host country sending two tandems to the podium and Estonia and England one each.

The women’s event had Americans Maddie Anderson and Molly Turner as the winners. In the gold medal match, they overcame Estonians Heleene Hollas and Liisa Soomets in straight sets (21-11, 21-18). The second-place finish is now the best result in the season for the Estonians, who had finished fourth in Klaipeda last month.

Valentina Cali and Margherita Tega represented the host country on the women’s podium after they triumphed in the all-Italian bronze medal match, defeating compatriots Giada Godenzoni and Giulia Rubini in the tie-breaker (16-21, 21-13, 16-14).

Italy was the highest-ranked European nation in the men’s event, with Davide Benzi and Carlo Bonifazi making it to the gold medal match. The Italians, however, were forced to forfeit and had to settle for silver, their third medal in the season, with Argentineans Bautista Amieva and Leo Aveiro taking home the gold medals.

Bronze went to English Issa Batrane and Frederick Bialokoz, who repeated the same result they achieved in Ios earlier this month by downing Norwegians Markus Mol and Nils Ringoen in two sets (22-20, 21-18) to finish third in the Italian event.

After three consecutive weeks in Italy, the Beach Pro Tour Futures events will be in two different countries next week, with the Polish capital Warsaw and the Belgian city of Leuven hosting double-gender tournaments from July 21-24.