Nyköping, Sweden, June 17, 2018. June has become a good month for both beach and indoor volleyball teams from Sweden. After David Åhman and Jonatan Hellvig won the CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup in Baden last week, the women's Volleyball team have reached the final of the CEV Silver European League. Those results are even more special for siblings Fanny and David Åhman, who are part of both teams and their successes. Will Fanny join her brother and claim her own gold medal on Sunday?
Sweden celebrated a triumph in their semifinal against Albania on Saturday at the European League Final Four in Nyköping, surrounded by their families and friends. For libero Fanny Åhman this support meant not only her parents, but also her brother who came to support her straight from Austria, where he won the CEV Youth Continental Cup Final, thus securing a ticket to the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires with his partner Jonatan Hellvig.
Motivated by their active parents, both Fanny and David began their journey with sport trying many disciplines until they came across Volleyball and fell in love with it. Eight years later, Fanny is part of the indoor Volleyball national team, but she does have experience with beach volleyball as well. “I went to a beach volleyball camp just for fun and I fell in love with this sport as well,” she said. In the sand her partner was Isabelle Haak, who is now her teammate in the indoor Volleyball team. Leaving beach volleyball for its indoor version wasn’t entirely voluntarily for Fanny. She still enjoys to play it, but time is one of the main obstacles for the libero. “I am trying to play both but the volleyball season is really long and we really put a lot of efforts in our team, so having only three weeks free in the summer, there won’t be much time for beach,” she explained. In the future Fanny is planning to head to Texas and pursue her career in both sports in the USA.
The younger of the two siblings, 16-year-old David followed his sister into trying both beach and indoor volleyball. Too young to set his mind on only one of the sports, David admits that successes like the one from the CEV Youth Continental Cup Finals in Baden make him want to leave the outside hitter position for beach volleyball a little bit more. David and Jonatan Hellvig had a very short preparation together for the tournament in Baden, but those couple of weeks proved very fruitful, as they won the gold medal. “This victory was pretty big for us and we didn’t expect to finish first,” he recalls.
Having their first great result, both players will be continuing together for the time being. Their next challenge will be the 2018 CEV U20 Beach Volleyball European Championship, which kicks off on the 28th of June in Anapa, Russia. But before David will join Jonatan in their preparations, he has yet another important task this weekend - support his sister in the final of the first ever Silver European League Final Four.
The Gold medal match between Sweden and Austria will be played at 19.00 CET.
For more information about Silver #EuroLeagueW click here.