03/06/2016 12:31
‘Power Volleyball guys’ Brouwer and Meeuwsen set sights on European Championship and Olympic medals
2016 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship - Final
Biel / Bienne, Switzerland, June 3, 2016. Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen caused a sensation in 2013 when they cruised to gold at the World Championship in Stare Jablonki, Poland – and that coincided with their first ever appearance on the most prestigious stage you can get in the sport, apart from the Olympics. Three years later they are now chasing their first European Championship medal in Biel / Bienne after in 2015 they dropped the bronze medal game to compatriots Reinder Nummerdor and Christiaan Varenhorst. The #EuroBeachVolley is a key stop on the way to the Rio Olympics where as they say, “we want to get a medal. These will be our first Olympics and hopefully we can repeat what we did at our first World Championship.”
The 2016 CEV Beach Volleyball European Championship Final is being extensively covered on the CEV website (click here) as well as on all CEV social media pages; a comprehensive live gallery of the competition is available here while additional information can be found on the organisers’ website www.beacheuro2016.ch.
Brouwer and Meeuwsen swept three matches in a row in the pool phase of the #EuroBeachVolley, including a 2-1 victory over France’s Youssef Krou and Edouard Rowlandson on Friday morning. “Of course we are happy with what we have done so far and delighted that we can skip the first round of elimination. However, the good thing is that we have not played our best so far, so there is more to come and I am confident that we have saved our best for the most important stages of the tournament,” Brouwer said.
Back in 2013 their performance at the World Championship was one of the biggest sensations in Beach Volleyball history. “Well, if you ask me about the memory I cherish the most, I would go for the quarterfinal match with Pedro/Bruno. We played on court 2 and I remember there were very few spectators at the beginning of the match. As the game progressed, and another one had finished on centre court, more and more people stopped by and we ended up playing before a pretty huge crowd. It was a close match, with lots of match balls for both teams, and as far as I can remember we ended up winning 20-18 in the tie-break,” Brouwer recalled. “And you know, a fan who was there on that same day approached us here in Biel / Bienne and gave us a picture of that match. As far as I can understand, he’s from Poland, but lives in France, and this gesture brought back many nice memories from that day.”
Their performance in Stare Jablonki was so unexpected that no Dutch reporter was there and a press conference attended by a large number of media had to be organised straight upon their return to the Netherlands. “Unfortunately, though the World Championships were organised last year in Holland, we are still fighting to get more media exposure. The Dutch Volleyball Federation and our sponsors have been working hard to improve on this, but most tournaments we contest are not broadcast back home, there’s only Internet streaming or pay-per-view, so very few people can follow us and get to know the sport. I know people are working hard for this to change, but we still suffer from the competition brought by other sports, like for instance speed skating or cycling,” Brouwer continued.
Their rise to the top has been a fast one – only four years ago they played mostly CEV Satellite tournaments or other lower-profile events on the European and national tour. Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuil were their idols and with Nummerdor most likely to retire after the Rio Olympics, they will be the role models the next generation of Dutch Beach Volleyball players will be looking up to. “We have a number of young players, about 20 years old, who are now on the national programme and have been training with us at our main base in The Hague,” Meeuwsen said. “Some years ago we felt the privilege of working with Reinder and Richard as we could learn lots of things by just practicing with them, so it would be cool if only a few years later we could become an inspiration for the younger ones as much as they were for us.”
The Beach Volleyball programme of the Dutch Volleyball Federation is probably the most structured, professional and well-organised in the world – alongside with Brazil. Meeuwsen and Brouwer are working with a number of experts, taking care of their nutrition, physical and strength conditioning, technique, etc. “Beach Volleyball has evolved and even though we very much like watching footage from the old days, nowadays you can’t improvise anything if you want to be competitive at the highest level. That is why there are so many people working for us and with us, behind the scenes, and their main duty is to make sure we keep on improving and perform our best when it counts the most, which means that this year we skipped a lot of tournaments to focus entirely on the European Championship and especially on the Olympics. We want to get a medal from both of these events,” Brouwer said.
These guys have become known for what they call ‘Power Volleyball’: “This term was introduced by our coach Gijs Ronnes, and we think it reflects the kind of Beach Volleyball we play, with a focus on jumping as high as possible and hitting the ball as hard as we can. Our style has been developed in a way that we can exploit our strengths – such as height and power – to the fullest,” Brouwer explained. “As you can see, there are lots of tall guys around and the game has become more and more physical. I think there are quite some teams who are trying and have been trying to replicate the same model.”
Their recipe for success is summed up by Brouwer: “I think success comes when you work hard and are focussed on everything you do, including the things you like the least. I would spend my whole time just hanging around with a ball, but I have learned that there are many more things that are equally important if you want to be successful, like for instance strength and conditioning. Years ago I would not have spent much time in the gym, but now I know this is what can take you to the next level and make you one of the best in the world, so everything is worth the effort you put into it.”
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