2016-05-12 13:31:00 CEST
Teenage girls become first Romanian women to reach FIVB tournament
Beata Vaida and Adriana-Maria Matei were over the moon to become the first Romanian women to make it through to a FIVB beach volleyball event. Photo credit: FIVB.
You’ve heard the saying ‘there’s a first time for everything’, right?
Well on Wednesday two teenage girls from Romania were lapping up the plaudits in Lucerne after becoming the first women’s team from their country to compete in an FIVB beach volleyball event.
Romania might be best known for Transylvania and Count Dracula but there was nothing scary about the incredible feat of Beata Vaida and Adriana-Maria Matei. The duo stormed to three successive qualification matches to earn a place in the pool stages at the Under-21 World Championships.
As they say in Bucharest “Felicitări!” – that’s congratulations, by the way!
Beata, 18, and Adriana-Maria, 17, will have their names etched in the record books after a trio of superb wins over teams from Paraguay, Norway and Poland. Their prize? A place in Pool H of the competition against pairs from Switzerland, Mexico and Russia.
The remarkable Romanians join the world’s hottest young beach volleyball talent in the pool play which kicks-off on Thursday. Top seeds are home favorites Dunja Gerson and Selina Marolf (SUI) but they face stern competition in what promises to be an exhilarating few days of play from the likes of Megan and Nicole McNamara of Canada and Brazil’s Eduarda Lisboa and Ana Patricia Silva.
Meanwhile, in the men’s half of the draw, Brazil team Matheus Maia and Adrielson Dos Santos also won three matches on the spin to pinch a qualification place and line-up with 32 other pairs hopeful of glory.
Those include Swiss top seeds Florian Breer and Yves Haussener and Russian Olympic youth champions Artem Yarzutkin and Oleg Stoyanovskiy.
Who will make it through? Pool play in Lucerne comes to an end on Friday before the nail-biting knockout stages get under way. The men’s and women’s finals both take place on Monday so make sure you return to our website to find out who won what and how!
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