Perusic and Schweiner lead European teams at the podium in Uberlândia
News
It was another successful week for European teams at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour with duos from the continent taking home one medal from each type at the Elite16 event held in Uberlândia, Brazil.
Czechs Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner led the all-Europeam podium in the men’s tournament, standing taller than Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sørum, who took silver, and Polish Michal Bryl and Bartosz Łosiak, who earned bronze.
Perusic and Schweiner, who celebrated their first victory on the Beach Pro Tour with their title in Brazil, overcame Mol and Sørum for just the second time in ten encounters, securing a 2-1 (21-19, 15-21, 15-11) triumph in the gold medal match.
Ondrej Perusic“This tournament couldn’t have gone better for us. We had a great atmosphere and had some really nice days here in Uberlândia. And it was a great final. The Norwegians are the best team in the world, but we had nothing to lose. We played them many times and we lost the last several ones. But the atmosphere here was amazing and that pushed us to win at the end. We made some good plays at the end and were also a little bit lucky.”
Czech Beach Volleyball Player
Bryl and Łosiak made their first podium appearance this season in Brazil. The Polish faced another European team in the bronze medal match and prevailed over Dutch Steven van de Velde and Matthew Immers in the tie-breaker (21-19, 21-23, 15-9).
Bartosz Łosiak“I like playing in Brazil very much. It’s amazing to play here, in front of these beautiful people. I’ve played here more than ten times in my career and always enjoyed it, especially when I was able to bring a medal home, like today.”
Polish Beach Volleyball Player
It was the fourth podium sweep staged by European teams on the Beach Pro Tour in 2023, repeating what had already happened in Doha, La Paz and Tepic.
No European teams made it to the medal rounds in Uberlândia, with Latvians Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka and Swiss Nina Brunner and Tanja Hüberli, who both finished fifth, having the team best results for teams from the continent.
The Beach Pro Tour will now head to Europe, with several events set to take place on the continent over the last few months. The first one will be the Madrid Futures, which will have two weeks of action in the Spanish capital, with the men playing from May 11-14 and the women getting on the sand one week later, from Mary 18-21.
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