With Thomas Hodges & Zachery Schubert’s victory over Remi Bassereau & Julien Lyneel, the pool stage of the men’s Olympic beach volleyball tournament came to an end and the Australians filled up the last vacancy in the knockout rounds.

In a Pool C game on Saturday morning, 15^th-seeded Hodges & Schubert prevailed over crowd favourites, 22^nd-seeded Frenchmen Remi Bassereau & Julien Lyneel, and knocked them out of contention with a 2-0 (21-16, 22-20) sweep. Schubert was the best scorer of the match with 18 points to his name, including three aces. The Aussies finished third in the pool on a 1-2 win-loss record and just short on point ratio to make the eighthfinal round directly. They are one of the four teams who will compete in the so-called “lucky-loser” sixteenthfinal round on Saturday evening.

“The calculations are the coaches’ job. Our job is to go out there and play every point as hard as we can. And I think we did that,” Hodges told the FIVB after the match.

“At the end of the day, we weren’t thinking about it out there. It would come across your mind every once in a while, but in the end you just face the team who is in front of you at the moment and play one game at a time,” Schubert confirmed.

“It was so emotional at the end! It’s our first win at the Olympic Games and we are unbelievably excited,” Hodges continued. “Playing France in France was special. The energy inside the stadium was crazy! We know the French team very well and they are both really good guys, so it’s also heart-breaking to see that they are done with their Olympic campaign now. But that’s sports. There are always two sides to it. While we are over the moon with joy and celebrating with our families, someone on the other side has to lose, unfortunately.”

Earlier on Saturday morning, third-seeded Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler hammered out a 2-0 (21-19, 21-15) shutout of 10^th-seeded Michal Bryl & Bartosz Losiak in a direct duel for the first place in the pool between two unbeaten sides, already qualified for the eighthfinals. Ehlers put up a solid seven kill blocks and an ace towards the victory and shared the top scorer honours with Bryl on 15 points each.

The table toppers in Pools B and E also emerged during the evening session on Friday. Defending Olympic champions Anders Mol & Christian Sorum achieved a 2-0 (21-16, 21-19) win over Steven van de Velde & Matthew Immers after both teams had already secured their passage to the eighthfinals. The second-seeded Norwegians finished first in Pool B undefeated in three matchs, while the Dutch pair came second on a 1-2 win-loss record and a better point ratio than third-placed Marco Grimalt & Esteban Grimalt of Chile and fourth-placed Alex Ranghieri & Adrian Carambula of Italy. Immers was above all in that match with 18 points to his name. Sorum led the winners with 17, while Mol impressed with five kill blocks and two aces to finish with 15 points.

The Pool E finale offered a clash between two undefeated teams for the first place in the table. Eighth-seeded Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano of Brazil mastered a 2-0 (21-18, 21-16) upset of fifth-seeded Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner of Czechia, handing the reigning world champions their first setback of the tournament. Evandro was the best scorer of the game with five kill blocks, four aces and 11 spike kills towards a 20-point match high. Both the Brazilians and the Czechs qualified for the eighthfinals, while third-placed Canadians Samuel Schachter & Daniel Dearing moved on to the sixteenthfinals.

Once all pool action was over, it became clear that the world’s number one team, bracket leaders David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden, and fourth-seeded Brazilians George Wanderley & Andre Stein are the two third-placed teams from the pools that progressed directly to the eighthfinals, while the two sixteenthfinal fixtures will feature Canada’s Samuel Schachter & Daniel Dearing against Chile’s Marco Grimalt & Esteban Grimalt at 18:00 local time (16:00 UTC) and Hodges & Schubert against USA’s Miles Evans & Chase Budinger at 23:00 (21:00) on Saturday evening.

Olympic Games Paris 2024 Beach Volleyball: schedule and results

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