07/08/2015 21:53
Men's tournament 2015 CEV U18 Beach Volleyball European Championship will enter it's final stages
2015 CEV U18 Beach Volleyball European Championship
Riga, Latvia, August 7, 2015. A few hours after the last pool plays of the girls at the 2015 CEV U18 Beach Volleyball European Championship, the boys finished their group matches as well. 24 teams still have a chance to conquer a medal. Players and organisers were pleasantly surprised when Latvia’s highest official stopped by: President Raimonds Vējonis.
Click here for further information including detailed results, pictures and much more. Read all about the visit of President Raimonds Vējonis here.
The 2015 CEV U18 Beach Volleyball European Championships in Riga is being covered extensively also on Twitter and Facebook with the official hashtag being #EuroBeachVolleyU18
The following teams finished first in their pools:
A: Mihails Samoilovs/Aleksandrs Nasonovs from Latvia
B: Milan Sievers/Sven Winter from Germany
C: Dimitriy Korotkov/Reimo Reimand from Estonia
D: Vasilii Ivanov/Aleksei Kirienko from Russia
E: Moritz Fabian Kind/Lauris Dine Ochaya from Austria
F: Atvars Ozoliņš/Kristaps Šmits from Latvia
G: Óscar Jiménez Gutiérrez/Alejandro Huerta Pastor from Spain
H: Audrius Knasas/Aurimas Mazuras from Lithuania
Friday was another successful day for the native players, since they booked five victories in six games. Samoilovs/Nasonovs and Ozoliņš/Šmits ensured the first place in their pools with two wins each. Lazdiņš/Āboms finished second in pool H, in which three teams ended with the same amount of points. Because the point ratio from Latvia was the best, they finished above Czech Republic and The Netherlands.
Other tournament favourites played excellent as well. Number 2 seed Sievers/Winter from Germany won twice in style. Sven Winter, who is playing with Milan Sievers, can retain the title he claimed last year together with Julius Thole. This never happened before in the history of the U18 championships.
In pool D the Russian duo Ivanov/Kirienko performed very strong. Russia didn’t lost a set so far in this tournament, a promising statistic. Last year’s bronze medallists Gutiérrez/Pastor from Spain lost their second match from Sweden (August Borna/Emil Serreau), but ended up in the first place anyway after winning the third pool match.
A very exciting match was played between the Estonian guys Dimitriy Korotkov/Reimo Reimand and the team from Poland (Adam Lenc/Maciej Lewicki). Estonia was down 9:14 in the tiebreak but managed to win the set anyway (16-14). This escape delivered them the first place in pool C. Lenc/Lewicki finished second in last year’s CEV U18 European Championships.
Samoilovs / Nasonovs beat U17 World champions
The day concluded with another exciting match for the spectators, because the local heroes Samoilovs/Nasonovs met with the 2014 FIVB U17 World champions Florian Breer/Yves Haussener from Switzerland. The Latvians weren’t impressed by the World champions, showed their strengths and ambitions, and won the game in two sets 2-0 (21-16, 21-13).
‘We executed our tasks really well today, perhaps only setting could have been a bit better,’ said the smiling Mihails Samoilovs. ‘We played against last year’s World champions, but that is the past. This is a different tournament with different teams.’
Samoilovs is clear when it comes to his and Nasonovs’ ambitions: ‘We only have one goal and that is to win this tournament.’
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