13/09/2020 21:00
Italy and Estonia victorious at Vilnius 1-Star event
2020 World Tour 1-Star - Vilnius
Vilnius, Lithuania, September 13, 2020. The very first FIVB World Tour tournament ever held in Lithuania finished on Sunday in Vilnius, with teams from Italy and Estonia securing the women’s and men’s gold medals, respectively. Artur Vasiljev and Robert Juchnevic provided the home fans with something to cheer about as they finished the men’s tournament in second place – their very best international result this far.
The home heroes easily dispatched Italy’s Tobia Marchetto and Alberto Di Silvestre 2-0 (21-10, 21-13) in the semis delivering a really commanding performance. However, in the gold medal match, they lost a truly dramatic battle 1-2 (21-12, 20-22, 12-15), to second-seeded Kusti Nõlvak and Mart Tiisaar of Estonia. The home team started the match with much energy, leaving no chance to their opponents. However, the Estonians responded well to take the second set and after a close race up to 10-all in the tiebreak, the visitors broke away to secure Estonia’s second World Tour gold after Rivo Vesik and Kristjan Kais had achieved this feat in Zagreb back in 2007. Kusti and Mart will go straight from Vilnius to Jurmala to join EuroBeachVolley 2020, where the Estonians feature in a ‘group of death’ together with reigning European champions Anders Mol/Christian Sørum of Norway, home stars Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins of Latvia and Austria’s Alexander Huber and Christoph Dressler.
Kusti Nõlvak and Mart Tiisaar are only the second Estonian team in history to win a World Tour event
Kusti and Mart thanked the crowd for all of their cheering and support, even though they were playing in Vilnius against a local team, and emphasised they will be cherishing their memories from the experience in the Lithuanian capital.
“Despite the loss, we appreciate the result,” Vasiljev said. “We came a bit short of the gold medal in the final but it is still our biggest achievement in a tournament of this level. It means a lot to us that such tournaments take place in Vilnius. I wish there were as many of them as possible. We feel really great here. We are glad that despite the difficult situation, this tournament took place.”
Home stars Robert Juchnevic and Artur Vasiljev taking their silver medals in a ceremony following strict COVID-19 protocols
“We lost at home and finished second, but we have nothing to feel sad about. We will try to play even better in the future and hope that there will be such a tournament in Vilnius next year as well. This summer was really not easy, it is difficult to play sports when there are only a few tournaments, but we have known for a long time that competitions should take place in Vilnius, so we were seriously preparing for it,” partner Juchnevic added.
Marchetto and Di Silvestre secured bronze for Italy as they beat the Estonians Timo Ander Lõhmus and Dimitriy Korotkov 2-1 (23-21, 19-21, 16-14) in another dramatic match.
Lithuania’s Ieva Dumbauskaite and Karole Virbickaite finished just outside of the podium in the women’s competition. In the semi-finals, after a real fight, they lost 1-2 (16-21, 21-15, 5-15) to Latvia’s Marta Ozolina and Luize Skrastina, and in the match for the third place 0-2 (19-21, 15-21) to Maria Francisca Rivas Zapata and Chris Vorpahl Villablanca of Chile.
“The opponents played better than we did in the small final. It was also inconvenient for us to play in such a strong wind. But if someone had said before the tournament that for the first time playing with Karole, we would make it to the semi-finals, I would have been laughing. Moreover, our rivals came from so far away that they should not have gone home with empty hands,” said Dumbauskaite showing a good sense of humour.
Playing together for the first time, home favourites Ieva Dumbauskaite (left) and Karole Virbickaite were happy with achieving a respectable fourth place in Vilnius
“I am very pleased with this tournament. The funniest part is that even though we are both blockers, this time we showed our best game in defence. Of course, there is still room for improvement,” Virbickaite added.
Dumbauskaite emphasised that this new experience will be useful for the future, because it is always good to improve in unusual conditions, especially when playing with high level opponents. “I think that in this case we win more by losing than by winning,” Ieva added, thanking the fans in Vilnius for their support.
The eventual winners of the tournament were Claudia Scampoli and Margherita Bianchin of Italy, a 2018 Youth Olympic Games silver medallist and graduate of the Florida International University, respectively, who secured a 21-17, 21-11 victory in the final with Ozolina/Skrastina.
“I am glad that against all odds we were able to host such an exciting tournament here in Vilnius, providing the crowd with the opportunity to witness Beach Volleyball of the finest level and giving players an additional chance to fight for medals in such a heavily disrupted season. Due to a constantly changing situation and strict anti-coronavirus prevention measures introduced by the local government, we had a very big challenge to make this tournament happen. I am proud that we managed to achieve our goal, making all the players happy and entertaining the crowd as well. Because of the strict rules in place to prevent the spread of the virus, we could not let in all the spectators, who were standing behind the fence and waiting patiently at the entrance. We hope that in the future we will have the possibility to bring and deliver more such tournaments in this beautiful place in Vilnius!” said the President of the Lithuanian Volleyball Federation, Darius Čerka.
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