Golden weekend for hosts on home sand

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Elize Maia and Eduarda Lisboa celebrate during their gold medal match in Fortaleza. Photo credit: FIVB.

In the week in which the Olympic flame began its journey to Rio, Brazil lit up the final tour stop on home sand by scooping four of the six medals on offer at the Fortaleza Open.

It was a clean sweep in the women’s tournament with the hosts occupying all three places on the podium. Elize Maia and Eduarda Lisboa – who is just 17 – claimed gold in the final, beating Juliana Felisberta/Taiana Lima 2-0. And bronze was secured thanks to Rebecca Cavalcanti/Lilliane Maestrini victory over Vanuatu’s Linline Matauatu/Miller Pata.

Oscar Brandao and Andre Loyala made it two golds from two for Brazil in Fortaleza. Photo credit: FIVB

And the medals kept coming for Brazil with a fourth in the men’s half of the tournament with young guns Oscar Brandao and Andre Loyala winning gold. The pair were 22nd seeds but they made a mockery of their lowly ranking with a stunning run to the final.

The Brazilians had already beaten Germans Jonathan Erdmann and Kay Matysik in their meeting in the pool stages and were on their way to securing another victory by the time their opponents retired due to exhaustion. Silver for Erdmann and Matysik was still superb reward following their quarterfinal triumph over second seeds Jake Gibb/Casey Patterson (USA).

In a fiercely competitive bronze medal match, Central America came out on top over South America with Mexico’s Juan Virgen/Lombardo Ontiveros beating Chile’s Grimalt cousins Esteban and Marco 2-0.

Brazil’s success was perhaps unexpected in the fact that both men’s and women’s number one seeds were sent tumbling out of the tournament in round two.

Pedro Solberg and Evandro Gonçalves kissed goodbye to their hopes, losing to the Grimalts, while Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas were stunned by a 2-0 defeat to American 24th seeds Emily Stockman/Amanda Dowdy.

The action continues to come thick and fast as the tour switches its attention to Sochi. We’ll preview the week’s action in Russia in the next few days.

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