01/08/2020 09:22
Youngster Markus Mol hopes to emulate big brothers Anders and Hendrik
2020 World Tour 1-Star - Ljubljana
Ljubljana, Slovenia, August 1, 2020. Markus Mol, following Hendrik and Anders, is already the third member of the Mol family to participate in the Ljubljana Beach Volleyball tournament – this year he is the only one to carry the ‘Mol flag’ as he attempts to emulate the success achieved by his elder siblings on the international stage.
Markus comes from the most successful Volleyball family in Norway since his parents are former Volleyball and Beach Volleyball champions and all of his four siblings are active Volleyball or Beach Volleyball players. Mum Merita Berntsen was a 1996 Olympian in Atlanta and dad Kåre received last year the award for the ‘Beach Volleyball Coach of the Year’ at the European Volleyball Gala hosted by the CEV in Sofia, Bulgaria.
His cousin Mathias Berntsen is an elite Beach Volleyball player too, so Markus has many opportunities to improve his skills as they often play against each other. He believes that two-time European champion Anders is the strongest and the hardest competitor among all of the family members, mainly because of his impressive blocking skills.
Beach Volleyball is a family business: all of the Mol brothers, including youngster Markus (second from left) on the podium of the 1-Star event held in early September 2019 in Oslo
Although he has been more or less involved in Volleyball since his early childhood, he played football for a long time too. “My whole family plays Volleyball and it is something normal that I have played it all my life, but I also have played football for a long time, until my 7th grade, when I seriously started playing Volleyball and joined competitions as well,” Markus reveals. When he is not playing Volleyball, the 18-year-old likes to relax, sleep and spend time with his family and friends. He also likes to travel, with his longest trip to Hawaii where his eldest brother Hendrik attended college.
His biggest achievement so far is definitely the second place from last year’s FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 1-Star held in Oslo, when he paired up with Christian Sørum, who usually plays with his brother Anders. In the semi-finals, they defeated Hendrik, but in the final, they lost to Anders, who competed in Oslo along with Nils Gunnar Ringøen – Markus’s partner in Ljubljana.
The youngest of the Mol brothers is enjoying his first time in the Slovenian capital, the venue that three years ago crowned his brother Anders with the gold medal and the MVP title. Although Markus is still very young, he nevertheless has set high goals for himself: “For now I will try to play more World Tour events, like this one in Ljubljana to gain experience and as many ranking points as possible and we will see where this will take me,” he concluded.
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