07/06/2014 18:30
I always knew I wanted to be a Beach Volleyball player – Germany’s revelation Lars Flüggen
2014 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Final
Cagliari, Italy, June 7, 2014. Together with partner Sebastian Fuchs, Germany’s Lars Flüggen was the real sensation of this year’s European Beach Volleyball Championship – Final in Cagliari. Though they lost in the 1/4 finals on Saturday afternoon after three close sets to top-seeded Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins of Latvia, Flüggen and Fuchs surprisingly became Germany’s best team in the tournament, settling for a fifth place that they share with another three teams, including their countrymen Alexander Walkenhorst and Stefan Windscheif. This is a very remarkable result for two guys who ended up playing together on Poetto beach only after Flüggen’s regular partner, Sebastian Dollinger, got injured. Lars was one of the favourite players for the audience of Cagliari, and with his amazing actions in defence he accounted for some of the real highlights of this tournament.
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“Though we can be happy and satisfied with this fifth place, it still hurts that we lost such a close match with Samoilovs and Smedins,” the 24-year old Flüggen says. “Maybe once the emotions have settled down and I look back at what we have done here with a clear mind, I will be much more proud than I am right now. We already played Samoilovs and Smedins in the Pool and we lost in three sets there as well. You simply can’t miss your chance when you play teams that are as experienced as they are. They are brutal, so to speak, as once you leave that chance slip away from your hands, they just hold on it to the end and you won’t get a second opportunity.”
Flüggen and Fuchs played together only in this tournament as Sebastian Dollinger will be back in action already next week for the FIVB Grand Slam in Moscow. Lars debuted last year on the international stage together with Alexander Walkenhorst winning the CEV Satellite in Lausanne. “We teamed up after I initially had joined forces with Finn Dittelbach while he used to play with Eric Koreng. This combination did not work for neither of us. So in the end I got the opportunity to play with Alex and we had a great year together, especially since I had the opportunity to make it to the international stage. At the end of last year he joined the ranks of the national team, playing with Windscheif, so I had to search for a different partner.”
Flüggen knew from a very young age he would like to embark on a career in Beach Volleyball: “I started out when I was only 14, mainly as we drove to the North Sea to spend there our summer holidays with the whole family. Back to Berlin, my home town, I joined a Volleyball club and similarly to most of the players who are here, I initially played indoors. That said, I always knew that I would be more suitable to Beach Volleyball, also because of my physical features. The prototype, so to speak, that I embody is more required in Beach Volleyball than in Volleyball. So it was only a question of time and in 2012 I decided to take the plunge and focus only on Beach Volleyball. That is how my adventure really got started.”
Lars and his regular partner Sebastian Dollinger are not in the national team, so things are not always that easy: “We have a sponsor that has been extremely supportive, but we would need more help. However, we are convinced that once you bring good results, the support will follow, also from the German Volleyball Federation. And here in Cagliari I definitely made a first step forward. Our major goal and big dream is to continue to improve and progress so that in the end we will compete at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.”
Flüggen, whose hat has drawn the attention from many Beach Volleyball fans, also among those who are following the Championship from home, really enjoyed his time in Sardinia: “Apart from our fifth place, it was a good tournament. I know that the organisers had only a very short time to set everything up; they did a good job and I also liked the general ambiance here. Everything went well and I especially liked the good food we got here in Italy.” Last year he and Walkenhorst had finished in fifth place also at the European Championship in Klagenfurt: “It was a totally different event, something you can’t compare with anything else also on the World Tour. But we will travel back home with some memories also from our time here in Cagliari. It is a good starting point for me personally and I look forward to the next tournaments.” The soft-spoken and easy-going Lars has all what it takes to leave his mark on the international Beach Volleyball scene.
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