Sweden’s David Åhman/Jonatan Hellvig and Brazil’s Andre Loyola/George Wanderley are the last two teams standing in the men’s tournament of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Gstaad Elite16 and will fight for the gold medals and cowbells of the prestigious event at the Swiss Alps on Sunday, at 15:00 local time (13:00 GMT). Two hours earlier, Italy’s Paolo Nicolai/Samuele Cottafava and Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum will meet for bronze. All four teams will play at the Paris 2024 Olympics in a few weeks.

• Watch the Beach Pro Tour Gstaad Elite16 matches live on VBTV

The women’s tournament in the picturesque Swiss village advanced all the way to the semifinals, with USA’s Taryn Kloth/Kristen Nuss and Terese Cannon/Megan Kraft, Brazil’s Ágatha Bednarczuk/Rebecca Cavalcanti and Latvia’s Tina Graudina/Anastasija Samoilova remaining alive in the race for gold.

The top team in the FIVB World Ranking, Åhman and Hellvig secured two more victories in Gstaad on Saturday, getting to five in three days, overcoming Germans Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler 2-0 (21-18, 27-25) in the quarterfinals and prevailing over Nicolai and Cottafava in the tie-breaker (19-21, 21-17, 15-10) in the semifinals.

Gstaad Elite16 – Match Schedule and Results

The Swedish are one win away from their fourth Beach Pro Tour title in 2024, following victories in Tepic, Espinho and Ostrava, and have triumphed in 59 of their last 64 international matches.

Andre and George also started the day in the quarterfinals and found their way to the gold medal match with two victories – they downed compatriots Evandro Gonçalves and Arthur Lanci in two sets (21-16, 21-16) in the quarterfinals and needed all three (21-12, 20-22, 22-20) to make it past Mol and Sørum in the semifinals.

The Brazilians were the winners of the Saquarema Challenge, back in March, and won medals at the Elite16 level in tournaments held in Tepic (silver), Brasília and Espinho (bronze).

Two Olympic duos in the women’s semis

The women’s semifinals in Gstaad will feature two teams that will play in Paris in a few weeks and another two that didn’t qualify for the Games – two of these teams come from the United States, one from Brazil and one from Latvia.

The ‘Olympic side’ of the bracket will have Kloth and Nuss meeting Tina and Anastasija at 11:00 local time (9:00 GMT). The duo from the United States continued in great form in the Swiss Alps on Saturday and prevailed in their only match on the day, beating Dutch Raisa Schoon and Katja Stam 2-1 (22-20, 16-21, 15-13) in the quarterfinals.

Their opponents, Tina and Anastasija had a longer day, overcoming Spanish Daniela Álvarez and Tania Moreno 2-0 (21-19, 21-13) in the Round of 12 and eliminating Canadians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson also in two sets (21-13, 22-20) in the quarterfinal round.

The other two duos that fight for a spot in the gold medal match, Brazil’s Ágatha/Rebecca and USA’s Cannon/Kraft, had each to secure a pair of victories on Saturday in order to set up their semifinal duel, on Sunday, at 10:00 local time (8:00 GMT).

The Brazilians eliminated China’s Chen Xue/Xinyi Xia with a 2-0 (23-21, 21-18) victory in the Round of 12 and knocked out the home team of Esmée Böbner and Zoé Vergé-Dépré with another two-set (21-17, 21-19) triumph in the quarterfinals.

The Americans had a rougher start to their day, coming back to prevail over Brazilians Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa and Ana Patrícia Ramos in the tie-breaker (15-21, 21-19, 21-19) in the Round of 12, but were dominant in the quarterfinals, sweeping (21-17, 21-15) Italians Marta Menegatti and Valentina Gottardi.

Following the semifinals, the women's medal matches will be held in Gstaad on Sunday, with the dispute for bronze taking place at 14:00 local time (12:00 GMT) and the contest for gold beginning two hours later, in the final match of the event.

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