Youth Olympians become youngest ever World Tour winners

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Record breaking Dutch paiur Raisa Schoon (left) and Emi van Driel

Dutch duo Raisa Schoon and Emi van Driel made history by becoming the youngest ever gold medalists on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour with victory at the one-star event in Gothenburg, Sweden at the weekend.

Schoon, 17, and 18-year-old van Driel defeated Ukrainian twins Inna and Iryna Mahkno 21-17, 21-18 in just 31 minutes in the final.

With a combined age of 36 years, four months and 28 days, the youngsters bettered the previous record of 38 years, four months and 17 days of Chen Xue and Xi Xhang, recorded when the Chinese won in 2006.

“Our side-out worked very well so we had time to think about their side-out and how we could stop them. So it was somewhat of an easy game for us when we played like this,” said Van Driel.

“It feels awesome! We are so happy! The whole tournament has been good, the organization around it has been great, the location was beautiful, and now we won the gold medal.”

The teenagers’ first senior World Tour medal comes after the pair finished second in the Under-19 World Championships last year and finished ninth in the Youth Olympics in Argentina.

The bronze medal went the way of Norway’s Ane Guro Tveit Tjortland and Victoria Faye Kjolberg.

Aliaksandr Dziadkou (left) and Pavel Piatrushka celebrate their gold medal in Gothenburg

Meanwhile in the men’s division, Belarussian team Aliaksandr Dziadkou and Pavel Piatrushka lived up to their top-seeded status by taking gold.

The European pair did not drop a set on their way to glory, which included their 2-0 win over Latvians Tom Smedins and Haralds Regza in the final. The win for Dziadkou and Piatrushka was the second in their careers.

Turkish team Selcuk Sekerci and Safa Urlu, the third seeds in the event, took bronze.