Anders Mol and Christian Sørum could not become the first men’s beach volleyball team to defend their Olympic title two weeks ago in Paris, but the 2024 international season will still be historic for the Norwegians after their victory at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Hamburg Elite16 on Sunday.

• Watch Beach Pro Tour Hamburg Elite16 replays and highlights on VBTV

With their 2-0 (21-15, 21-11) win over Spanish legends Pablo Herrera and Adrián Gavira in the gold medal match at the Am Rothenbaum Stadium, the Beach Volley Vikings celebrated the 24^th international victory in their careers, the second-highest mark among men’s teams in history. Dutch Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot took bronze, completing the all-European podium in Germany.

Playing together internationally since 2016, Mol and Sørum won an impressive 24 golds in 60 events – they earned medals on 38 of those occasions. Their Hamburg victory made them pass Americans Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser, now ranking only behind Brazilians Ricardo Santos and Emanuel Rego, who have 34 victories.

“That means we still have at least ten more victories to go get,” Mol said, laughing. “It’s really unbelievable. Just being on the same range of guys like Rogers, Dalhausser, Emanuel and Ricardo is something we could never even hope for. Seeing the Norwegian flag together with Brazil and the USA when it comes to beach volleyball is even a little bit weird, but we’re not done yet, we want to keep going.”

Beach Pro Tour Hamburg Elite16 – Results

This season, the Norwegians won three other Elite16 medals – gold in Vienna, bronze in Doha and Gstaad -, besides the Paris Olympic bronze medal.

The Hamburg gold medal match marked the end of the international career of the legendary Herrera, who is set to retire at the age of 42 after appearing in a record six Olympics and winning silver in Athens 2004, as well as 28 international medals. Gavira, 36, will continue his career with a new partner.

“They are amazing athletes and amazing people off the court,” Sørum remarked. “They’ve been in the game for so long and it’s been an honor to share so many matches with them, especially this last one. I wanted to thank them for all they’ve done for the sport, we really appreciate them.”

Boermans and De Groot take bronze

In the bronze medal match in Hamburg, Boermans and De Groot topped Italian Olympians Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava 2-0 (21-18, 21-13) to make it to the podium. With that, they won their first medal since June, they took bronze at the Ostrava Elite16.

This year, the Dutch, who were fifth in their first Olympic appearance in Paris, also took gold at the season-opening Doha Elite16, in March, and secured bronze at the Stare Jablonki Challenge, at the start of June.

The 2024 Beach Pro Tour season has two more Elite16 events scheduled, both set to take place in Brazil. João Pessoa will host the first of the two tournaments, from October 16-20, with Rio de Janeiro coming up next, from November 6-10.

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