With support from Volleyball Empowerment, Vanuatu’s Lawac and Toko and Thailand’s Pithak and Poravid win Beach Pro Tour medals
Two teams financially supported by the FIVB’s Volleyball Empowerment programme made the podium at the season’s second Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures event, which finished on Sunday in Coolangatta, Australia. Thailand’s Pithak Tipjan and Poravid Taovato took the men’s silver, while Vanuatu’s Majabelle Lawac and Sherysyn Toko claimed bronze on the women’s side.
Thailand’s beach volleyball has benefited from Volleyball Empowerment coaching support for a few years now. For their pairing of 24-year-old Pithak and 21-year-old Poravid, the silver in Australia was the second Beach Pro Tour medal in a row, after they made the podium for the first time in December with gold at the Subic Bay Futures in the Philippines.
Thailand’s Pithak Tipjan and Poravid Taovato (Photo credits: volleyball.org.au / Rogue Gun Photography)
Two more men’s teams from Thailand competed in Coolangatta. Surin Jongklang and Dunwinit Kaewsai finished ninth, while Banlue Nakprakhong and Intuch Techakijvorakul were stopped in the qualifiers finishing twenty first.
Pithank and Poravid, seeded third in the main draw, reached the Coolangatta men’s final undefeated in four matches and put up quite a battle against second-seeded Ha Likejiang and Wu Jiaxin, especially in the second set of the gold medal game, but their Chinese opponents proved stronger on the way to a 2-0 (21-9, 25-23) victory and their third back-to-back Futures gold, after topping the podiums in Sohar, Oman and New Zealand.
“We’re very happy. This has given us motivation and confidence to play on,” Wu told volleyball.org.au.
The men’s bronze went to complete Beach Pro Tour rookies Jordan Hoppe and Charles Siragusa of the United States, who started their Coolangatta campaign, seeded at the very bottom of the qualification bracket, and ended with a 2-1 (18-21, 21-14, 15-12) comeback win over Germany’s Simon Kulzer and Bennet Poniewaz in the third place match.
“We had to battle a long way to get here, not only to get to Australia, but to go through the qualifiers and to get to the bronze medal match, so we’re…
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