06/09/2014 20:15
Home heroes and heroines still in the race for gold at U20 European Champs, Swiss girls want second consecutive title
2014 CEV U20 Beach Volleyball European Championship - Men & Women
Cesenatico, Italy, September 6, 2014. Upon completion of the third day of action on the beach of Cesenatico, the names of the teams that will be fighting for the medals of the 2014 CEV U20 Beach Volleyball European Championship were determined. The competition will come to an end on Sunday with the semis and final matches thereby crowning Europe’s Beach Volleyball stars in the making. Once again a large crowd followed the matches right from the morning session with a series of dramatic games entertaining the audience and those scouting the skills of Europe’s next golden generation.
The men’s tournament did not produce any major surprises: Lithuania’s Arnas Rumsevicius and Lukas Kazdailis, Germany’s Niklas Rudolf and Clemens Wickler, Russia’s Aleksander Margiev and Ilya Leshukov as well as home heroes Felice Sette/Riccardo Mazzon all made the semis.
Italy’s Simone Chinellato and Giacomo De Fabritiis, the first-seeded pair of the tournament, ended their campaign in the last round before the semis where they lost to Lithuania’s Rumsevicius and Kazdailis (16-21, 17-21); on Sunday they will try to finish the tournament at least in fifth place. “We did not think we could go this far going into this tournament,” they say, “so we are absolutely happy with our performance and with what we have achieved. Unfortunately in the quarterfinals we played one of the strongest teams in this tournament and frankly speaking, we could not expect to achieve more.”
Italy is still in contention for a medal also in the women’s competition where local heroines Michela Lantignotti and Irene Enzo caused a real sensation, especially with their victory in the quarterfinals over Norway’s Benedicte Maaseide and Sunniva Helland-Hansen (21-12, 25-23). In the semis they will now play last year’s bronze medallists Nadine and Teresa Strauss from Austria. The other semi-final match will be a remake of the gold medal match from last year’s Championship in Vilnius with reigning champions Nina Betschart/Nicole Eiholzer of Switzerland (pictured) playing Poland’s Katarzyna Kociolek and Jagoda Gruszczynska.
The Swiss ladies remain the major force to be reckoned with for the gold medal: “We have been playing together for six years already, we understand each other very well and we have developed an excellent team work,” Nina and Nicole acknowledge. “We feel like at home here in Cesenatico since we have come here already four times for some training camps. There are many good teams in this edition of the European Championship but we know what we are capable of and therefore tomorrow we will try to retain our title.”
The competition will draw to a close on Sunday with the women’s semi-finals starting at 9:30 am followed then by the men’s semis. The gold medal matches are then scheduled for 16:30 and 17:30 for women and men respectively.
Click here for more info and follow the live action from the centre court at LAOLA1.tv
|