Mol/Sunde and Bekhuis/Poiesz victorious in Ios
Futures in Europe
With victories of teams from Norway and the Netherlands, Europe had another strong weekend on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, collecting five of the six medals in play at the Ios Futures event, held in Greece.
While Norwegians Markus Mol and Jo Gladsoy Sunde dominated the men’s tournament in the Greek island, Dutch Wies Bekhuis and Desy Poiesz triumphed among the women at the Mylopotas Beach, keeping the perfect record of European teams in Futures events held in the continent so far – duos from the continent have won gold among the men and the women in each of the five tournaments played.
The younger brother of beach volleyball superstar Anders Mol, Markus, 21, and his partner Sunde had a long journey to the top of the podium, which started on Wednesday’s qualifier. After six straight victories, the two made it to Saturday’s gold medal match, where they triumphed again, overcoming Austrians Florian Schnetzer and Lorenz Petutschnig in two sets (21-17, 27-25) to take the title. It was the second Beach Pro Tour title for the Norwegians, who also triumphed at last year’s Warsaw Futures.
In the bronze medal match, the home team of Panagiotis Ioannidis and Thodoris Papadimitriou pleased the home fans and secured an all-European podium by upsetting Argentineans Bautista Amieva and Leo Aveiro with a 2-1 (21-18, 14-21, 15-13) win.
Bekhuis, 21, and Poiesz, 20, also had somewhat of a surprising victory in the women’s event. Seeded eighth, the Dutch lost just two sets in five matches to take gold in Ios and had a strong showing in the gold medal match, overcoming Austrians Katharina Schützenhöfer and Franziska Frield 2-0 (21-19, 21-18). It was the first international victory of the two, who were playing together for just the third time.
Argentineans Maia Najul and Cecilia Peralta prevented another all-European podium in Ios as they prevailed over Danish Clara Windeleff and Sofia Bisgaard in two sets (21-18, 21-19) to take bronze in the Greek event.
From Greece, the Beach Pro Tour heads to two different locations in Europe next week, with the Finnish capital Helsinki and the Italian city of Messina hosting double-gender Futures tournaments from Thursday to Sunday.
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 ranking points during the Olympic qualification period for the Paris 2024 Games.