09/08/2015 10:25
Latvian Beach Volleyball pioneers reminisce about 1996 U20 Championship in their home country
2015 CEV U18 Beach Volleyball European Championship
Riga, Latvia, August 9, 2015. The first official U20 Beach Volleyball European Championship was hosted in the Spanish town of Finestrat in 1999. Three years before, in 1996, the Latvian town of Jurmala already made a first attempt at organising an age-group European Championship. 19 years later Latvia is welcoming European’s greatest Beach Volleyball talents once again at the 2015 CEV U18 Beach Volleyball European Championships. Two Latvian medal winners from the first edition in 1996 are now working at the venue in Riga: Austris Stals and Aldis Jaundzeikars.
Austris Stals
Austris Stals (37) won the gold medal at the (un)official U20 European Championship in Jurmala in 1996, together with Armins Vensbergs, who is now a coach in New Zealand. Stals is currently working as venue director at the U18 Beach Volleyball European Championships in Riga. In his daily life the former European champion is the technical director of the Beach Box Elkor stadium, the great venue were the current competition is taking place.
‘I still have great memories of the European Championship in Jurmala,’ said Stals, who was playing as a libero for the Latvian indoor Volleyball team until 2013. ‘Armins and I beat Portugal in the final in front of 2,000 home spectators. It was an amazing feeling to play there.’
Stals said Beach Volleyball improved a lot since the time he was a junior: ‘The sport grew very fast the last decades, everything is much more organised these days. It makes me proud that Latvia is hosting such a great event once again.’
Aldis Jaundzeikars
Aldis Jaundzeikars (38) won the bronze medal at the tournament in Jurmala in 1996. Together with Klaus Zalkalns he beat France in the small final. Jaundzeikars is now working as a coach for the Swedish Volleyball Federation.
‘We entered the competition with three Latvian teams, and we were all coached by Aigars Birzulis, who conquered a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics with Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins,’ Jaundzeikars explains. ‘Because of him we finished with three Latvian teams in the top six.’
The bronze medallist from 1996 remembers that the rules from the early days were very different compared to now: ‘The tournament in Jurmala was the first European youth Beach Volleyball Championship. In the beginning Beach Volleyball was very similar to Volleyball. We still played with the side-out point system. I’m glad Beach Volleyball developed to the beautiful sport it is now.’
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