18/08/2017 17:40
Koekelkoren/van Walle make history for Belgium with #EuroBeachVolley semi-final berth
2017 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Final
Jurmala, Latvia, August 18, 2017. Dries Koekelkoren and Tom van Walle made history for Belgium on Friday as they secured a spot in the semis of the 2017 #EuroBeachVolley Final in Jurmala following a dramatic 2-1 victory (18-21, 21-15, 17-15) over Italy’s Alex Ranghieri and Adrian Carambula. This accounts for Belgium’s best result at the #EuroBeachVolley. Liesbeth Mouha and Liesbet Van Breedam finished fourth in the women’s competition at the 2009 edition of the continental championship in Sochi, but no men’s team from Belgium has ever made it this far at the #EuroBeachVolley.
This achievement confirms the continuous and steady growth of the Belgian team – who last year were twice close to qualifying to the Rio Olympics when contesting the European and intercontinental final stage of the Continental Cup in Norway and Russia, respectively.
Tom and Dries eventually failed to make it to the Rio Olympics – but their growth has continued smoothly and earlier this season they won a historic gold medal at the Baden Masters in Austria before delivering another solid performance at the World Champs in Vienna where they finished ninth.
“We did not set any specific goals coming here,” van Walle said after their victory over Ranghieri and Carambula, “but somewhere in my mind I really wanted to finish at least fifth. We knew we had a difficult task in our pool playing Brouwer/Meeuwsen [they eventually lost that game] and by finishing second in the group we were aware that we had to play one of the top teams from other pools in the quarterfinals. I have to say that Ranghieri and Carambula have played a great tournament here even though they surprisingly finished first in their pool and they fought until the end against us tonight as well. We are of course happy with making the semis but now we want to win a medal – because finishing fourth would be the worst thing that could happen to us at this point.”
Tom acknowledges that a medal from the #EuroBeachVolley would mean a lot to his team – and would take Beach Volleyball to the next level of popularity back home in Belgium. “It has been a hectic month, with the World Champs in Vienna and the final of the Belgian national tour, which we won last week in Knokke. Thanks to our results, more and more people have been following us, but it is still a small niche, so to speak. If we win a medal here and especially if any TV station back home broadcasts our matches on Saturday and Sunday, our audience would experience a massive growth. We would draw more attention from the press as well – and this is how we could take Beach Volleyball to the next level.”
Friday was a busy day for van Walle and Koekelkoren who played three matches in one day – and had to deal with the heat as well but it was worth the effort. “No men’s team from Belgium has ever played on the World Tour and professionally as much as we do,” van Walle said. “So anything we achieve is always somehow unprecedented.”
After securing their spot in Saturday’s semis, the Belgians will now play home stars Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins of Latvia, who completed Friday’s programme with another show of strength in their matchup with Poland’s Michal Bryl and Grzegorz Fijalek. Will Dries and Tom be able to steal the show from the ‘Lion King’ and ‘Terminator’ Smedins? Only time will tell…
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