Danish win historic World Tour gold

The return of the World Tour after a four-month break with a one-star event in Ljubljana this weekend was historic as for the first time ever Denmark topped the women’s podium of an international beach volleyball event with the victory of Line Trans and Clara Windeleff. The men’s tournament was won by Italians Andrea Abbiati and Tiziano Andreatta.

The Slovenian capital was the stage for the first World Tour event after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and it reunited 48 European teams from 13 different countries. Denmark had just two of these duos and they both made it to the gold medal match of the female tournament, the first between teams from the country, where Trans and Windeleff dominated Sofia Bisgaard and Cecilie Olsen to a 21-11, 21-10 victory.

“I think we were very dominating through the whole match,” Trans analyzed. “We played aggressively and made fewer mistakes. Our focus was on winning each next point, we gave 200% and we are so happy with the outcome.”

Belgium secured the bronze medal among the women with Sarah Cools and Lisa van der Vonder downing Latvian young talents Varvara Brailko and Anete Namike 21-14, 21-19 for the third place.

The men’s final featured Abbiati and Andreatta and Austrian veterans Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst, the silver medalists of the 2017 World Championships. With a dynamic game, the Italians upset the Silverboys and claimed their first World Tour title with a three-set win (21-18, 15-21, 15-11).

“We didn’t expect this victory since it’s our first tournament after a long break,” Andreatta stated. “Our opponents are a very good and strong team. It was beautiful to play on this amazing square, in this atmosphere.”

Austria also secured the bronze medal in the Slovenian capital, which is located less than 400 kilometers southwest of Vienna, with birthday boy Christoph Dressler and Alexander Huber posting a 22-24, 21-10, 15-8 victory over the home team of Tadej Bozenk and Vid Jakopin.

The next World Tour stop will be in Baden, Austria, which will host another one-star double-gender tournament from August 20-23.