SHARED TITLES IN
A INCREASINGLY COMPETITIVE WEVZA
09-08-2015
The teams
Arnaud Gauthier-Rat / Arnaud Loiseau (France) and Puk
Stubbe / Katjia Zwaanswijk (Netherlands) in the WEVZA
U21 Beach Volleyball Tournament and Diogo Pereira /
Bruno Santiago (Portugal) and Lena Günther / Andrea
Harbring (Germany) in the U19 event, won today the WEVZA
tournaments organized by the Portuguese Volleyball
Federation with the support of the Macedo de Cavaleiros
City Hall, that were held in Praia da Ribeira at
Albufeira do Azibo.
In the U21 men’s final Arnaud
Gauthier-Rat and Arnaud Loiseau, 5th ranked in the 2014
U19 World Championships held in Porto, returned to
Portugal to rise to the highest place in the podium and
ended with the expectations which Francisco Pombeiro /
Jose Jardim had in wining in front of their public.
Thrilled with their “first international triumph”,
Arnaud & Arnaud highlighted “the difficulties created by
the Portuguese teams, both in the pool phase (Diogo Maia
/ Tomas Silva) as in the final” adding between smiles
“even having to play the last match with the public
against us”.
Rising to the podium in our first
international tournament, wining the silver medal, and
mainly due to the way we played, since we always gave
our best on the court against all of our opponents,
demonstrates that we evolved as a team and that as to
please us” said Pombeiro and Jardim.
Tim Stöhr
and Manuel Harms, from Germany, ranked 3rd by defeating,
2-0, the Dutch Jasper Bouter (winner in last year’s
edition) and Tom Van Steenis.
In the U21 women’s
final, the Dutch team Joy Stubbe / Loladina Zwaanswijk
defeated the French Alexia Richard / Lezana Placette.
The new champions that played together their first
international competition were surprised but equally
satisfied with the gold medal. Aline Chamreau /
Ophélie Lusson ranked third in the competition by
defeating (2-0) the Germans Lisa Kozcian / Leonie
Welsch.
The fifth place went to the Spanish Aida
Etxebarria / Nerea Izagirre (the winning team from
2014), that defeated the German Constanze Bieneck /
Sophie Nestler, while Mariana Maia / Francisca Silva
took the 7th place after the forfeit, due to injury, of
the other Portuguese team Vanessa Paquete / Gabriela
Coelho.
Diogo Pereira and Bruno Santiago
achieved the first gold medal in WEVZA competitions for
Portugal. In the U19 men’s semi final, they won
against the German’s Stoob / Reinhardt by 2-1, coming
from a 0-1 set disadvantage and having suffered a small
fright with the momentary indisposition of one of the
players. Obviously pleased with the first place n the
podium, Diogo and Bruno confessed their surprise in
being able to overcome teams with a physical stature
clearly superior to theirs.
Matt Binder / Vincent
Freytag (GER) ranked third in the event wining by 2-0
against the Portuguese Joao Pedrosa and Joao Alves.
The Germans were happy with the result and with the
competition: “The bronze medal it’s a good result, which
we weren’t expecting because even though we have teams
from only three countries, there are teams here in the
competition with an already remarkable level of play. We
are pleased with the third place and also to be able to
play in such a beautiful venue”.
Although they
are not completely satisfied with the match result, the
young Portuguese team have nevertheless a positive
assessment: “The fourth place ended up by being a
good performance, since we are very young, even though
the feeling that we could have done better remains. We
reached the semi finals, where we faced another
Portuguese team, that we know very well and therefore it
was a match that could go either way, but they were
stronger and won, as well as the Germans were in this
last match, in which we accused some fatigue. We enjoyed
very much the competition, that had good teams, and also
the venue and we will be back next weekend to Macedo to
play the National championships.”
In the women’s
event Lena Günther / Andrea Harbring won (2-0: 21-18,
21-17) against the other team from Germany, Leonie
Körtzinger / Viktoria Seeber, regarded as the number 1
German team. “We are very happy and also surprised
with this gold medal. We had a though match in the
final, against a more experienced team and also from our
country. Someone had to win and we are glad it was us”
they said.
The Portuguese team Barbara Freitas /
Sara Lourenço tried to give one more joy to the public,
but ended up by losing (0-2) against the Dutch Puk
Stubbe / Katja Stam, even though their recovery in the
second set that created some expectations amongst the
fans. In the end Barbara and Sara recognised that the
fourth place wasn’t enough, but it’s an excellent
motivation for a promising even if newly formed team.
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