Antalya, Turkey, June 18, 2016. After three intense days of Beach Volleyball, there are four teams left competing for the medals at the 2016 CEV U20 Beach Volleyball European Championship. Anders Berntsen Mol, who won the U20 championship last year with his cousin Mathias Berntsen, managed to reach the semi-finals once again with his new teammate Aleksander Sandlie Sørum. The Norwegians will meet their friends Florian Breer and Yves Haussener from Switzerland on Sunday morning. The other semi-final will go down between Latvia (Kristaps Smits and Atvars Ozolins) and Russia (Vasilii Ivanov and Aleksandr Kramarenko).
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Sørum and Mol were close to being eliminated from the tournament in the second round against Mihails Samoilovs and Aleksandrs Nasonovs from Latvia. The Norwegians couldn’t prevent Latvia from taking an 8-4 lead in the decisive third set. After a great comeback, Norway managed to win the final set 15-11, and so they advanced to the quarter-finals.
There Sørum and Mol needed once again three sets to defeat their opponent. The talented Ruben Penninga and Mees Blom from The Netherlands challenged Norway with everything they had, but it was just not enough: Norway won 2-1 (16-21, 21-17, 15-9).
The Norwegians will meet Florian Breer and Yves Haussener in the semi-finals. The Swiss bronze medal winners from the 2015 CEV U18 Beach Volleyball European Championship, impressed on Saturday with two sparkling victories over Valerio Vendetti/Maurizio Montanari from Italy and Julius Thole/Sven Winter from Germany.
The other semi-final on Sunday will go down between Kristaps Smits and Atvars Ozolins from Latvia and Vasilii Ivanov and Aleksandr Kramarenko from Russia. The Latvians are playing very strong in Antalya.
Programme semi-finals Sunday:
Smits/Ozolins LAT [30] - Ivanov/Kramarenko RUS [4]
Breer/Haussener SUI [6] - Sørum/Mol NOR [2]
Picture: Kristaps Smits (left) and Atvars Ozolins from Latvia