31/07/2015 13:26
Austria’s Peter Eglseer living his Beach Volleyball dream
2015 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Final
Klagenfurt, Austria, July 31, 2015. 25-year-old Peter Eglseer is living a Beach Volleyball dream. Austria’s first ever male Beach Volleyball medallist at any (age-group) World Championship (U21, 2010) is being supported by a large number people to be able to play on the international stage. “Sometimes I’m forced to improvise a lot. Like many other Beach Volleyball colleagues I’m a real specialist in searching for cheap flights and hotels. I even know where to find the cheapest fuel for my car. Without the huge support of my family and many friends, it wouldn’t be possible to live my dream.”
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But that’s just one side of the coin. On the other side the three-time Austrian championships bronze medallist is happy to experience these things: “It’s not like in many other sports where the sportsmen never have to organise things by themselves. I’m sure that’s an important lesson for my life after my professional career. If you look at the careers of some former Austrian Beach Volleyball cracks, like Olympians Nik Berger (who now works for the Austrian Ministry of Sports) or Florian Gosch (now Marketing Director at the Austrian Olympic Committee), you can see, how useful their previous experiences seem to be.”
When Eglseer started his Volleyball career he was already 14 years old. At that time he had been playing table tennis in a local club for two and a half years. Born in Kremsmünster, which is close the Austria’s third largest city Linz, he participated in a regional Volleyball competition with his school. “The President of the Upper Austrian Volleyball federation who unfortunately is now dead was attending the championship and watched me playing. As I played table tennis and tennis I had no problems to control the ball in the right way. I was also pretty tall for my age, so he asked me if was interested in joining a practice of a local Volleyball club. I am still thankful that I was scouted for Volleyball back then, because it influenced and changed my whole life.”
From that moment on, Eglseer's career developed rapidly. “When I played my first Austrian Volleyball age-group championships I was asked to join the youth national team. Beach Volleyball was kind of a hobby for me at this time. At the beginning I played with my older brother and friends, but I quickly started playing tournaments. As I was still playing table tennis, I had to make up my mind and decide to go for just one or the other sport. My parents left this decision down to me, I then chose Volleyball as I was really enjoying the atmosphere in my club and many people were supporting me,” Eglseer explains.
After finishing high school Peter was able to focus even more on Volleyball and Beach Volleyball. He started playing Beach Volleyball together with his former long-term partner Felix Koraimann, but kept playing indoors as well. With Koraimann he was able to win Austria’s first ever male World Championship medal (bronze) in 2010. They also won the Middle European championships in 2013 and took three bronze medals at the Austrian national championships.
Last winter they decided to split up after six seasons together. Eglseer’s current partner, Daniel Müllner, after parting ways with Jörg Wutzl, was searching for a new challenge as well so they entered the FIVB Doha Open in late 2014. “It was like a test event for our partnership. We surprisingly finished in fifth place. From this moment we started practicing together and I stopped playing indoors. We are really happy that the Austrian Federation offered us the chance to join the training group in Vienna. Brazilian-born Leonardo Lourenco was appointed as coach there and we can use his knowledge. I guess the work is paying off, because I was eligible to play in Klagenfurt for the first time in my career.”
Even if Eglseer/Müllner didn’t make it out of their pool, Peter is happy with their performance at the world’s Beach Volleyball ‘Mecca’. “We had really strong opponents, but we were able to challenge them in many sets. I want to come back in 2016. That’s for sure. Hopefully our appearance in Klagenfurt will help us attract more sponsors, so everything would be easier for us. The prize money from the European Championships will be reinvested to book the flights to the next international tournaments. Especially towards the end of this season we will try to gain more ranking points, as by then some of the top teams in the world are probably going to take a break from competition.”
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