Reigning Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum will head to the Paris Games on a high as the Norwegians triumphed in the last Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour stop before the event, this week’s Vienna Elite16, which came to an end on Sunday at the Austrian capital.

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

Playing in front of around 4,000 fans at the Heumarkt, the Beach Volley Vikings completed their undefeated campaign of six victories with a 2-0 (25-23, 21-12) win over Polish Michal Bryl and Bartosz Łosiak in the gold medal match. Chileans Marco and Esteban Grimalt, who will also play in Paris 2024, completed the podium in third place.

The victory came in a good moment for the Olympic champions, who had to deal with some injuries in the last year and were going through their longest wait for a title since they first emerged, in 2018. Before this week’s Vienna Elite16, Mol and Sørum had last topped the podium at the international level at the Montréal Elite16, on July 30, 2023, and went six tournaments without taking gold, their longest wait in six years.

“We’ll definitely feed from this victory here in Vienna, it was just what we needed,” Mol added. “We have now found more confidence in our game. We haven’t had that many tournaments this year, so this is priceless. It was great that we got to play so many matches and to come all the way to the final.”

The Austrian capital has traditionally been a safe place for the Norwegians, who won FIVB World Tour events in the city in 2018 and 2019 and never lost an international beach volleyball match there in three tournaments. Sunday’s victory also placed Vienna at the top of the list of locations where the Beach Volley Viking took gold the most times in their careers, tied with Ostrava, where they played six times and won three.

“Vienna is always amazing and we had to beat so many tough teams to get here,” Sørum reacted. “I was just so happy that we made it to the final and to be able to win it, it’s a really great feeling. I’m so proud of the fans for the atmosphere they were able to put on the entire week.”

Vienna Elite16 – Results

With 23 international titles, the Beach Volley Vikings now rank second among the most successful men’s teams in beach volleyball, tied with Americans Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser. They are only behind Brazilians Ricardo Santos and Emanuel Rego, who have 34 victories.

Grimalts win bronze

One of the last teams to qualify for the Paris Games, the Grimalts, who earned their spot through the South American continental qualification pathway, returned to the podium in an Elite16 event for the first time since their victory in Gstaad in 2022 with a sweep (21-18, 21-16) of Germans Nils Ehlers and Clemens Wickler in the bronze medal match in Vienna.

“We are very happy today, that we got to win bronze” Marco commented. “It’s my birthday week and I've enjoyed this energy from the fans every day, I love these people. We got some Chilean fans on the stands cheering for us too and it’s very special to get this result right before the Olympics.”

It was the second podium appearance for the Chilean cousins this season – they took gold at the Xiamen Challenge, in April.

The next Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event will take place in five weeks, after the conclusion of the Paris Olympics, in Hamburg, Germany, from August 21-25.

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