Where Champions Are Made: Vienna
Editorial
Vienna has developed a solid reputation for hosting some of the most spectacular beach volleyball tournaments over the last five years, with the highlight being this year’s EuroBeachVolley. But the Austrian capital has been playing a pivotal role in the sport’s success in the country for a lot longer.
Besides being the stage of what several athletes from around the world would label as the “top beach volleyball event of the year”, the Austrian capital has long been the home of the nation’s top teams, offering them the condition they need in order to prepare to represent the country overseas.
Much of that happens at the MaXX-Sportcenter, the private multisport training facility located not too far from the Danube Island that serves as the base for the country’s top teams. The venue, which is also open for amateur players, had three indoor and outdoor courts, locker rooms, a gym and areas for the athletes to get physio and massage.
Lena Plesiutschnig“The venue is just perfect for us. All courts are great and we have really deep inside in the indoor ones, which is great. The gym and the physio rooms are all in the same building and that’s really helpful too.”
Austrian Beach Volleyball Player
Born in Graz, the 28-year-old Plesiutschnig moved to Vienna about a decade ago, when she graduated from high school. With the elite of the sport in the country, including the legendary Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst, all training in the city, that has become the dream of every up-and-coming player in the country.
The goal is to build memories as nice as the ones Plesiutschnig and partner Katharina Schüntzenhöfer have built at the facility.
Lena Plesiutschnig“We’ve spent our entire professional careers training there and I remember that in our first training session after winning silver at the 2015 European Games there were a lot of journalists there to talk to us. And another remarkable moment was when Kathi returned to training after several months when she had shoulder surgery.”
Austrian Beach Volleyball Player
Not many sports are as simple to play as beach volleyball. A ball and a net are all it takes to play the sport at the amateur level. For the professionals, however, having an efficient training facility is a mandatory condition for success due to the high level the sport has reached over the last 30 years. European beach volleyball teams are no exception and one of the nicest things about it is that players can find exactly what they need in a variety of different setups. Our series “Where Champions Are Made” will present some of the most popular beach volleyball training facilities in the continent.