Ahman & Hellvig make it three in a row in Ostrava

Reigning Olympic and world champions David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden defended their Ostrava Elite title on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, claiming the gold medals in Czechia’s third largest city for the third consecutive time to improve their overall Tour collection to 13 gold, five silver and two bronze medals. It was Ahman & Hellvig’s second podium in 2026, after their first-place finish at the Joao Pessoa Elite in March.

• Watch the Ostrava Elite on VBTV

Despite announcing his retirement as a professional athlete earlier this year, 2023 world champion and two-time Olympian Ondrej Perusic of Czechia hit the home sand in Ostrava alongside his new teammate Jiri Sedlak and delighted the crowd at the Lower Vitkovice industrial heritage site with silver, his fourth at this venue. Perusic and his long-time partner David Schweiner finished Ostrava runners-up in 2019, 2021 and 2022. Last year, they took bronze. For Sedlak, on the other hand, it was the first Elite podium. He earned all his previous Beach Pro Tour medals at Futures tournaments.

USA’s Taylor Crabb & Andrew Benesh took bronze in Ostrava, their second on the Beach Pro Tour since they joined forces for the start of this season, after finishing third in Joao Pessoa.

Top-seeded David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig lost one of their matches in Ostrava to finish Pool A runners-up to unbeaten Andre Stein & Renato Lima of Brazil. The Swedish jump-setters won three tie-breaker knockout matches on the way to the final. In the semis, an injury-prompted withdrawal of second-seeded Qataris Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan at 10-10 in the third set handed Ahman & Hellvig a 2-1 (21-18, 19-21, 15-10) forfeit win. They went on to produce a 2-0 (21-19, 21-14) sweep of the final against 20^th-seeded qualifiers Ondrej Perusic & Jiri Sedlak to lift the Ostrava trophy again. Hellvig was the leading scorer of the gold medal showdown with 26 points, including six kill blocks and an ace.

Perusic & Sedlak started their Ostrava journey from the qualifiers and finished the tournament as silver medalists on a 6-2 win-loss record. Along the way, in the eighthfinals, they even delivered a 2-0 (28-26, 21-15) upset of Czechia’s new flagship duo consisting of Perusic’s former teammate Schweiner and Tadeas Trousil. In the semifinals, Perusic & Sedlak came back from a set down against Taylor Crabb & Andrew Benesh to celebrate a 2-1 (19-21, 21-12, 15-13) victory and secure their spot on the podium.

For the 14^th-seeded Americans, it was the only loss of the tournament. They claimed a forfeit win of the third-place fixture against Cherif & Ahmed to bring home the bronze.

A total of 32 men’s duos representing 16 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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