Elite16 bronze, national championships, Futures event and massive youth competitions among the good things happening “down under”
Australian beach volleyball is in the middle of an exciting period of beach volleyball for the country: their best duo won an Elite16 bronze, their national champions were crowned, a 10-day Volleyslam festival is underway with a Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures event taking place in Coolangatta, and Volleyball Australia have a new beach volleyball assistant coach coming in as part of a Volleyball Empowerment project.
The 2023 Australian Beach Volleyball Championships were held from 24 to 26 March in Coolangatta to highlight and complete a national tour of four stops that started back in December.
Georgia Johnson and Jasmine Fleming emerged as champions (Photo credits: volleyball.org.au)
In the women’s tournament, the home pairs overcame some solid international competition to line up an all-Australian final four with Georgia Johnson and Jasmine Fleming emerging as champions after a hard-fought 2-1 (18-21, 21-11, 15-11) comeback win over Stefanie Fejes and Jana Milutinovic in Sunday’s final. The bronze went to Stefanie Weiler and Rebecca Ingram after their opponents Nicole Laird and Brittany Kendall unfortunately had to forfeit the third place game.
Zieba and Acconci celebrate on Australian sand (Photo credits: volleyball.org.au)
The international wild card pairing of Poland’s Mateusz Zieba and Italy’s Daniele Acconci topped the men’s podium, also after a comeback from a set down in the final, 2-1 (17-21, 21-14, 15-13) against U21 Australian Champions Lucas Josefsen and Ben Hood. In an all-Australian bronze medal game, Justin Schumann and Garang Anyang mastered a 2-0 (21-13, 21-18) shutout of Matthew Abela and Robert Reeves.
“It feels great to get the win,” Zieba said. “It was a very long season, especially as we had to play in all the qualifiers. This final was our eighth game of the tournament, but we won all of them and we deserve to win.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHyTZiWqTwc&t=4s
While the Australian Championship events were unfolding in Coolangatta, three Australian duos were defending the country’s honour at the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 stop in Tepic, Mexico. The two men’s teams, Christopher McHugh and Paul Burnett, and Thomas Hodges and Zachery Schubert, could not make it through the qualifiers, but their compatriots Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho Del Solar made it all the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Asian Volleyball Confederation…