Teams with FIVB Volleyball Empowerment support triumph at Ios Futures (original) (raw)
- FIVB Volleyball Empowerment beneficiaries Elazar & Day of Israel win Futures gold in Ios
- Australia’s Fejes & Johnson and Ukraine’s Hladun & Lazarenko make the women’s podium, also with support from the programme
- Germany’s Kunst & Sude win the women’s title in Greece
- Germany’s Sagstetter & Sagstetter and Latvia’s Bedritis & Rinkevics take the men’s silver and bronze
Eylon Elazar & River Day got together for just that one tournament and brought the gold home to FIVB Volleyball Empowerment supported Israel. The one-off pairing started their participation at the Beach Pro Tour Futures in Ios from the qualifiers and went all the way to the top of the podium undefeated, to claim the first gold on the Tour for either of its members. Germany’s Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter and Latvia’s Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics completed the men’s podium.
While another duo from Germany, Julia Sude & Lea Sophie Kunst, claimed the women’s gold in Greece, the two teams that accompanied them on the podium were also FIVB Volleyball Empowerment beneficiaries – Australia’s Stefanie Fejes & Georgia Johnson and Ukraine’s Maryna Hladun & Tetiana Lazarenko.
The 2024 Ios Futures men’s podium (Photo credits: cev.eu)
The Israel Volleyball Association’s beach volleyball department has been allocated the sum of CHF 72,000 in coach support for their national beach volleyball teams from FIVB Volleyball Empowerment and they have been working under the supervision of Italian instructor Matteo Varnier.
23-year-old Eylon Elazar usually competes alongside Kevin Cuzmiciov, while 22-year-old River Day usually partners with Idan Katriel, but the two joined forces for the Futures in Ios and achieved the first Beach Pro Tour gold medal in their careers. The team started from Wednesday’s qualifiers and six wins in a row later they triumphed as Ios champions. Seeded seventh in the main draw, Elazar & Day celebrated a 2-1 (21-16, 10-21, 15-8) semifinal victory (pictured in the main photo; credits: cev.eu) over third-seeded Ardis Bedritis & Arturs Rinkevics on Saturday, and followed up with a 2-1 (14-21, 21-17, 15-9) comeback from a set down in the final showdown against fifth-seeded Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter.
Jonas Sagstetter & Benedikt Sagstetter of Germany crowned their four-game winning streak with a 2-1 (18-21, 21-14, 15-10) comeback in their semifinal against Greece’s Stavros Ntallas & Dimitrios Chatzinikolaou, seeded 11th, to make it to the team’s first-ever Beach Pro Tour final. The silver they settled with was the second medal for the duo on the Tour, after their bronze at last year’s Baden Futures.
In the third place match, Latvia’s Bedritis & Rinkevics mastered a 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) over the home favourites to take the bronze and make it to the pair’s third Beach Pro Tour podium.
Stefanie Fejes & Georgia Johnson celebrate their semifinal win in Ios (Photo credits: cev.eu)
In the women’s competition, 19-year-old Stefanie Fejes and 25-year-old Georgia Johnson of Australia, seeded second, reached the women’s final in Ios undefeated in four matches played. In their semifinal game, they managed to beat USA’s Madison Shields & Delaney Peranich in straight sets, 2-0 (21-12, 22-20), securing their team’s second consecutive podium, after earning gold at the Krakow Futures a week earlier.
In the other semifinal, 36-year-old German Olympian Julia Sude, a gold medallist of the last edition of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Finals in 2021, and 22-year-old Lea Kunst, who teamed up for the start of this season, delivered a narrow 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) win against the top-seeded Ukrainian pair, also a tandem between experienced 31-year-old Maryna Hladun and young 20-year-old talent Tetiana Lazarenko.
Volleyball Australia has so far been granted a total of CHF 180,000 worth of FIVB Volleyball Empowerment coach support for their national beach volleyball teams and Australian Olympian and 2007 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship bronze medallist Joshua Slack is in charge of the women’s duos. The FIVB Volleyball Empowerment programme has also been supporting the Ukraine Volleyball Federation in continuing its volleyball and beach volleyball activities since 2022, providing funding of CHF 210,000 a year.
Maryna Hladun spikes against Julia Sude’s block (Photo credits: cev.eu)
In Saturday’s gold medal showdown, Sude & Kunst produced a 2-0 (21-15, 21-19) upset of Fejes & Johnson to top the podium, snatching the gold after five consecutive wins and dropping only a set along the way to celebrate the duo’s first Beach Pro Tour medal.
Hladun & Lazarenko bounced back with a 2-0 (21-16, 21-13) sweep of the bronze medal match against ninth-seeded Shields & Peranich to pick up the duo’s second Beach Pro Tour medal, after the Warsaw Futures gold last September.
The 2024 Ios Futures women’s podium (Photo credits: cev.eu)
25 men’s and 25 women’s teams representing a total of 21 different countries took part in the Ios Futures. The next Futures event will take place in Baden, Austria from 26 to 30 June.