Disentis, Switzerland, March 12, 2017. The Swiss domination in the men’s tournament of the 2017 CEV Snow Volleyball European Tour stop in Disentis continued on Sunday to result in a complete sweep of the podium by the home teams. Ninth-seeded Snow Volleyball rookies Andreas Catschegn/Timon Hallauer continued their winning streak all the way through the gold medal match to triumph with the title. Sixth-seeded Raphael Zurgilgen/Thomas Helbling and seventh-seeded Marco Back/Christian Busin claimed silver and bronze, respectively.
Sunday’s competition started with the last leg of the losers’ bracket and immediately brought in a surprising result. Back/Busin managed a 3-1 (11-9, 12-10, 7-11, 11-7) victory over the top-seeded Polish pair Michal Matyja/Maciej Klimas to knock the reigning ‘King of the Snow’ out of the competition. The other Polish duo, third-seeded Piotr Groszek/Tomasz Cwiertnia, managed to save the international spirit of the competition by becoming the only non-Swiss team among the semi-finalists.
However, this was as much as any foreign pair could achieve on Swiss snow this weekend. The semi-finals were very interesting, offering some Snow Volleyball of the highest level, and were extended to four sets each. Catschegn/Hallauer won the all-Swiss clash with Back/Busin by 3-1 (11-8, 12-14, 11-6, 11-8) and Zurgilgen/Helbling put a stop to Groszek/Cwiertnia’s hopes to make the final with a 3-1 (6-11, 11-8, 11-6, 14-12) win.
Back/Busin made sure the Swiss occupation of the podium was complete with a 3-0 (11-9, 11-9, 11-9) shutout of the Polish team in the bronze medal match.
With the home crowd happy to cheer on two Swiss teams competing for the gold medals on a sunny Alpine afternoon, the two contending duos put on a fight, especially in the first set. However, with Andi Catschegn’s powerful blocks dominating over the net, his team was unstoppable. Catschegn/Hallauer cruised to a 3-0 (14-12, 11-8, 11-5) victory after 38 minutes of play and celebrated with the title.
“No, we did not expect that at all!” exclaimed Andi Catschegn upon closing the final match with a win. “We knew that there were some very good players from other countries, like the Polish guys, and they were good indeed. We had to beat them first, so we are very happy with our win here. I have no idea how we achieved this. I think the nice surrounding and the nice weather gave us a push. It is the first time we have played on snow and we were surprised that it felt quite strange, not like sand. However, we played quite well I think, so we are happy with our result. We will definitely come back.”
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