Uludag, Turkey, March 4, 2018. Despite weather delays and interruptions, the last competition day of the Uludag stop on the 2018 CEV Snow Volleyball European Tour came to a completion with a home triumph for Turkey’s Bugra Eryildiz and Aleyna Vence in the women’s tournament and an all-Russian men’s podium.
Due to pouring rain, strong winds and thick fog on Sunday morning, the day’s first matches were delayed by more than an hour. Once the games started, the weather did not get any more merciful to the players and the organisers. During the men’s finals an ice storm and some lightning caused an interruption, but with the heroic efforts from everyone involved, action was resumed to the delight of the many on-site spectators and the live TV viewers.
Supported by the home crowd, third-seeded Bugra Eryildiz and Aleyna Vence came back from a set down in their semifinal against fourth-seeded Russians Ksenia Dabizha and Liudmila Dayanova to claim a 2-1 (4-11, 11-8, 11-6) victory and progress to the final. In the gold medal match, the Turkish pair cruised to a 3-0 (11-6, 11-6, 11-4) win against 10th-seeded Slovakians Silvia Poszmikova and Romana Jurenkova.
This is the second gold and overall third medal for Eryildiz and Vence out of three participations on the Tour this year.
“It feels so good to win the gold medal again,” Vence said upon winning the final in Uludag. “We won gold at the previous Turkish stop in Erciyes, but winning in Bursa feels special because I love this city. We expect nothing but medals in the tournaments to come.”
“We played not only against our opponents, but also against the weather conditions. We played our game. The crowd was cheering for us and that motivated us a lot. We are a relatively new duo. We have been playing together for six months now and we expect more success in the future,” Eryildiz added as they both thanked the fans for coming to the venue, despite the hard conditions, and expressed gratitude to the Turkish Volleyball federation and all the sponsors for making this happen.
Silver medallists Poszmikova and Jurenkova also received a well-deserved applause for the heroic efforts they put on the court on this day. Jurenkova twisted an ankle during the second set of their last match in the losers’ bracket, but defying the pain got back into play. Winning that match in a tough tie-breaker, the Slovak pair had little time to recover for their semifinal match. Despite all the problems, they went on to upset the top-seeded reigning Queens of the Snow Michaela Knoblochová and Anna Dostalova from the Czech Republic with a 2-0 (11-7, 11-3) win to make the final.
On the men’s side, top-seeded Ruslan Daianov and Taras Myskiv and third-seeded Ruslan Bykanov and Maksim Hudyakov completely disregarded the weather hardships and put on a spectacular display of Snow Volleyball, which went into a tie-breaker before determining the winner. Daianov and Myskiv had to come from behind twice to extend the gold medal match to a crucial fifth set. Bykanov and Hudyakov won the first two rallies on a triple match point for their opponents, but on their third attempt Daianov put the ball on the snow to shape up the 3-2 (9-11, 11-9, 7-11, 11-7, 11-9) victory.
This was the third consecutive final on the European Tour between these two Russian pairs. Daianov and Myskiv won in Roccaraso, while Bykanov and Hudyakov grabbed the gold in Bakuriani. For Daianov and Myskiv, who also topped the podium in Erciyes, this is the third gold and fourth overall medal this year, while for Ruslan Daianov himself, this is the fifth gold on the Tour after also winning two events in 2017, including Uludag.
“It was a pretty close match. With ups and downs we managed to get the win and the gold medal,” Daianov said. “This is my second gold medal in Uludag and that makes me feel extra happy. We try to prepare for all kinds of conditions and we saw the benefit of it.”
“It was a longer match than we hoped for,” Myskiv added. “The weather affected our performance a lot. We tried to use it in our advantage. Especially in the last set we had some long plays that exhausted us a lot, but that kind of possibilities is why we train so hard and we are glad we did it. Thanks to all the fans for coming! Thanks to all the sponsors, our coaches and the federation for helping us!”
To complete the all-Russian podium in Uludag, the other gold medallist from last year, Yury Bogatov, and his current teammate Pavel Rakusov, who are rhe reigning Russian national champions, mastered a 2-0 (11-5, 11-8) win against second-seeded Poles Michal Matyja and Piotr Janiak in the bronze medal match.
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