Anders Mol & Christian Sorum showed their high class in Saturday’s third place match at the men’s Olympic beach volleyball tournament and claimed their second Olympic medal. After the Tokyo 2020 gold, the Norwegian Beachvolley Vikings snatched the bronze at Paris 2024. They bounced back from their semifinal loss to Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler with a straight-set win over Tokyo bronze medallists Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan of Qatar.
Second-seeded Mol & Sorum dominated the bronze medal game against 13th-seeded Cherif & Ahmed on the way to a 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) victory. The Norwegians outscored the Qataris in all elements, most substantially in serving (4-0 in aces) and in blocking (7-3 in stuffs). Mol and Cherif authored all the kill blocks in the match. The Norwegian blocker also produced all four aces for his team to build up an 18-point match high, while his Qatari counterpart finished with 12 points, one fewer than Sorum’s 13.
In the first set, the Asian team held up through 9-9, after which three points in a row for the European pair opened up a gap, which they continued to expand to as many as eight points before Mol closed it off at 21-13 with a successful swing. In the second set, Cherif & Ahmed recovered from an early three-point lag and leveled the score at 8-8, only to let the opponents break away again and this time for good. Sorum delivered the 21-16 match winner with a kill in attack.
