The pair benefit from Volleyball Empowerment coach support
Benefiting from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support, 24-year-old Pithak Tipjan (pictured in the main photo) and 22-year-old Poravid Taovato achieved a remarkable feat by earning bronze medals at the 2023 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships, which concluded on Monday in Fuzhou, China. This achievement marks Thailand’s first men’s podium finish in the continental competition since 2013 and only the third in its history.
Thailand’s beach volleyball programme has been thriving with the assistance of coach support through the FIVB Volleyball Empowerment programme over the past few years. Guided by Brazilian coach Adriana Bento Buczmiejuk, Pithak and Poravid have displayed consistent progress in their performances, and their bronze medal at the Asian Championship showcases their development. Since 2018, nearly CHF 150,000 has been invested by the FIVB in the national beach volleyball teams of Thailand.
In December, the Thai pair claimed their first Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour medal, a Subic Bay Futures gold, and backed it up with silver at their next appearance on the Tour, at the Coolangatta Futures in March and April. After that, they took silver at April’s AVC Beach Tour stop in Samila. With their bronze medal from the Asian Championship, Pithak and Poravid entered the top 50 of the FIVB World Ranking for the first time, in position 47.
In the 32-team men’s main draw in Fuzhou, they started in Pool F, where they beat India’s Naresh Tumpera and Raju Krishnam 2-0 (21-17, 21-11), Indonesia’s Bintang Akbar and Mohammad Ashfiya 2-1 (16-21, 21-14, 15-13) and Kazakhstan’s Dmitriy Yakovlev and Sergey Bogatu 2-1 (22-20, 17-21, 15-13).
In the eighthfinals, the Thais mastered a 2-0 (21-17, 21-19) shutout of New Zealand’s Thomas Hartles and Ben O’Dea, and, in the quarterfinals, they swept China’s Li Jie and Wang Yanwei 2-0 (21-16, 21-14). Pithak and Poravid’s only loss of the tournament came in the semifinals, when champions-to-be Thomas Hodges and Zachery Schubert of Australia claimed a 2-0 (21-18, 21-16) victory.
Poravid Taovato dives for the ball during their semifinal match
In Monday’s bronze medal battle, Pithak and Poravid claimed a convincing 2-0 (21-17, 21-13) win over Iran’s Bahman Salemiinjehboroun and Sina Shokati Shekarsaraei to claim their spot on the podium.
In the all-Australian final, Hodges and Schubert, who won the Jurmala Challenge gold on the…
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