12/08/2018 19:45
Unstoppable Myskiv and Samoday claim second World Tour gold in seven days
2018 CEV Beach Volleyball Satellite - Vaduz
Vaduz, Liechtenstein, August 12, 2018. On Sunday afternoon history repeated itself since Russia’s Taras Myskiv and Valeriy Samoday marched from victory to victory to claim top honours from the 1-Star/Satellite event in Vaduz, only seven days after achieving that same feat in Ljubljana. They did so in emphatic style – after starting their journey from the qualification round on Thursday to emulate what Alexandra Wheeler and Lara Dykstra of USA had done in the women’s tournament.
Sunday’s programme started with the semis where Myskiv/Samoday played Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov and Vladyslav Iemelianchyk. It was a truly special match since Samoday and Popov played together for many years earlier in their careers to claim a number of medals from European and World age-group Championships before Samoday moved to Kazakhstan first and then to Russia. Myskiv and Samoday emerged victorious from a classy match (31-29, 21-14) where especially the first set was a truly exciting and entertaining affair.
Reigning Snow Volleyball European champion Taras Myskiv won his second straight World Tour gold in Vaduz
The second semi featured young Swiss Florian Breer/Yves Haussener and Poland’s Mateusz Lysikowski/Mateusz Paszkowski. On Saturday, Breer/Haussener had edged top seeds Quentin Métral/Simon Haugenbuch in a dramatic quarterfinal and they played almost without making any mistakes against the Poles as well. They looked fast, cool and tactically clever to cruise to a 2-0 (24-22, 21-19) victory and seal their place in the gold medal match. “It definitely was not our best game but we made fewer mistakes than the Poles did,” Breer and Haussener commented. “We will try to improve our game for the final and we obviously want to win that match too.”
Popov and Iemelianchyk finished the tournament in Vaduz on a high note, as they did not find much resistance from their Polish opponents in the bronze medal game (21-12, 21-16).
A full house with some 1,000 fans in attendance witnessed the ‘grand finale’ where Breer/Haussener cashed their seventh opportunity to claim the first set and with it an edge in the race for gold (31-29). However, Myskiv/Samoday claimed the second set quite comfortably (21-17) and the show continued in the tiebreaker, where the Russians sealed a 15-11 win to celebrate with their second World Tour gold medal in seven days.
The full podium of the 1-Star/Satellite in Vaduz together with local authorities and officials
Myskiv, a reigning Snow Volleyball European champion, and his partner Samoday remained down-to-earth even after this additional success. “We obviously are extremely happy to win the second tournament in two weeks; we will continue to work hard in order to improve with each day,” they said.
The programme for the final day included a special fun competition contested to pay tribute to the late Patrick Schürmann, the former chair of the local Organising Committee. The 14th edition of the CEV Satellite in Vaduz was again a major success – and counting the Small Countries event held last week, as many as 12,000 fans paid a visit to the venue in Vaduz downtown. On Friday and Saturday night, the organisers could count with a full house and the weather was on their side as well – with the sun shining on Vaduz for two weeks in a row.
Mr Philippe Schürmann, President of the Organising Committee as well as of the Liechtenstein Volleyball Federation, sounded elated: “We are extremely happy, especially since we could host a World Tour event again and this raised the international profile of our tournament even further. The level is higher and again we had teams from all over the world competing here in Vaduz.”
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