After bronze and silver, Melissa & Brandie finally win gold in Ostrava

Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson finally conquered Ostrava. After their bronze in 2023 and silver in 2024, the Paris 2024 Olympic silver medalists made it all the way to the top of the women’s podium at the 2026 edition of the Elite event in Czechia’s third largest city on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. It was their eighth podium and fourth gold medal on the Beach Pro Tour. Melissa & Brandie also medaled at their only previous appearance on the 2026 Beach Pro Tour, finishing runners-up at the Saquarema Elite in April.

• Watch the Ostrava Elite on VBTV

Two-time Olympians and former world’s number one ranked team Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon of the Netherlands brought home silver, their 12^th Beach Pro Tour medal and first since October 2025.

Another former leader in the FIVB World Ranking – the Brazilian team of Thamela Coradello & Victoria Lopes – claimed the Ostrava bronze and got on a Beach Pro Tour podium for the ninth time along their journey together. The defending 2025 Ostrava champions also earned their first Tour hardware of 2026.

Melissa & Brandie registered their only loss of the tournament in Czechia during the pool phase. They still finished on top of the final Pool F standings, edging the team that beat them – USA’s Corinne Quiggle & Chloe Loreen – on point ratios. The sixth-seeded Canadians won all their other matches in Ostrava in straight sets, except for the semifinal against seventh-seeded Leona Kernen & Joana Mader of Switzerland, in which they were pushed to a tie-breaker – 2-1 (21-16, 18-21, 15-9). Brandie impressed with seven kill blocks towards a match-high 27 points. In the gold medal showdown against Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon, Melissa & Brandie mastered a 2-0 (21-16, 21-14) victory with a match-high 20 points from Brandie.

"We finally won in Ostrava!! It's our favorite tournament on tour. We had a bronze and a silver coming into this, so we knew we wanted gold to finish the trifecta," said Melissa. "Playing in Ostrava is always incredible, because the crowd makes every game so special. They truly appreciate beach volleyball and we feel so loved. We put in some great teamwork this week, the team behind the team executed at a high level, so we could do our thing on the court. We’re so pleased with how the 2026 season is starting!"

"We were pushed all tournament by incredible athletes the entire week," Brandie told VBTV. "Our team has been preparing, working hard and it’s years in the making. It’s also a lot of communication, finding things out and being gritty. And we wanted it; we really wanted gold in Ostrava this time."

12^th-seeded Stam & Schoon also conceded one loss on the way to the final – to top-seeded Americans Kristen Cruz & Taryn Brasher in pool – but took their revenge from them in the quarterfinals. The Dutch duo went on to produce a 2-0 (21-18, 21-16) sweep of their semifinal against ninth-seeded Thamela Coradello & Victoria Lopes to secure their place on the podium.

For Thamela & Victoria, it was the only defeat of the tournament. They bounced back with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-12) shutout of Kernen & Mader in the bronze medal match to make their first Beach Pro Tour podium in 2026.

A total of 32 women’s duos representing 15 different countries took part in the Ostrava Elite.

The next Elite stop on the Beach Pro Tour will take place in Gstaad, Switzerland from July 1 to 5.

Ostrava Elite: all results

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