10/08/2014 17:55
Germany’s Laboureur and Sude shatter Swiss dreams of home glory
2014 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship – Biel/Bienne Masters
Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, August 10, 2014. Everything was set on Sunday for a big Beach Volleyball party to mark the conclusion of the 2014 CEV Biel/Bienne Masters – fourth stop of this year’s CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship; the sun was shining and the spectators had flocked to the stadium on the shores of Lake Biel to see the big final matches. Unfortunately there was no Swiss party at the end of the women’s tournament since home heroines Isabelle Forrer and Anouk Vergé-Dépré clearly lost the final to Germany’s Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude (13-21, 15-21). By making the last stage of the competition, these teams had already claimed one spot each for their respective countries to join the line-up of the 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in the Netherlands.
The first game on schedule was the bronze medal match starring Slovakia’s Natalia Dubovcova and Dominika Nestarcova versus Monika Brzostek/Kinga Kolosinska of Poland. The Slovakian girls had travelled to Biel/Bienne after winning two bronze medals on this year’s FIVB World Tour – they had done so at Stavanger and Long Beach – and so the crowd on the stands could expect an exciting game. The two teams didn’t disappoint the local fans and lived up to their high expectations: the game remained tight from start to end. As the Polish could tie the game in the second set, the match had to be decided at the tie-break. The Slovakian pre-favourites only could prevail over Brzostek/Kolosinska after one hour as they seized the tie-break by the score of 15-11 thereby securing their first medal – as well as the first podium finish for their country – in a CEV Masters tournament.
Nevertheless, the women’s gold medal match was expected to be the real highlight of the day for the home audience; the Swiss heroines Isabelle Forrer and Anouk Vergé-Depré faced Germany’s Chantal Laboureur and Julia Sude in the final act of the tournament. The hosts, however, couldn’t fulfil the high expectations of their home crowd because they committed too many unforced errors and couldn’t profit from their own side-outs. On the other hand, Sude and Laboureur played very efficiently and cold-bloodedly. As a consequence, the Germans won the gold medal match with a speedy 21-13, 21-15.
Swiss home star Anouk Vergé-Dépré was on the verge of tears after the final whistle: “We wanted to give something back to the audience. The fans on the stands were incredible and I’m just sad that we weren’t able to win this gold medal, but we didn’t deserve it – we committed too many errors.”
“As we live in Friedrichshafen on the shores of Lake Constance, we felt like at home here in Biel/Bienne. It’s always amazing to win a tournament, but this time even more because we claimed a spot for our country in the 2015 FIVB World Championships coming up next year in The Hague,” an elated Julia Sude commented.
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