This is not a story about the skyball. Yes, it is a story about Adrian Carambula, also known as Mr. Skyball, and his teammate Enrico Rossi, currently competing in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic beach volleyball tournament. However, it goes way beyond Carambula’s trademark serve, to the true story of the team's qualification run for Tokyo.
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Beach Volleyball
Carambula reveals heart-rending story behind brilliant run for Tokyo
Not a story about the skyball
Published 06:48, 29 Jul 2021
Back in September of last year, almost prophetically, fivb.com wrote, “currently Carambula and Rossi are just outside the Olympic qualifying places in the provisional FIVB Olympic Rankings, but with a few skyball-inspired victories, there is no reason why the pair will not be packing their bags for Tokyo 2020.”
Just months later, the victories came in! In the money time of the race for Olympic spots, the Italian team snatched a fifth place at the first Cancun tournament, followed by three semifinals in a row at the next three World Tour 4-star events, and that eventually got them to Tokyo.
Carambula reaches for a difficult ball
The achievement may well have been skyball-inspired, but as Carambula himself revealed on the Olympic premises at Shiokaze Park, there was a lot more to it...
“Yes, there was a lot more to it,” Carambula told Volleyball World. “Enrico was positive with COVID. He gave it to my dad. My dad ended up in the hospital, in intensive care. So between Enrico’s isolation and the one I had to go through with my dad, it was a month and 10 days inside my house, three weeks before Mexico.
“During that time - it was more а personal decision than it was job-wise, and I’d rather leave it at that - we switched coaches. Andrea Rafaelli did a great job with us. He got the team back together, he gave us a new focus, and we went to Mexico and Sochi and we got three semifinals and a fifth.
“The story is a bit longer. That was the short version of it. It was pretty intense...”
Born in Uruguay some 33 years ago, Adrian picked up beach volleyball after his family moved to the United States. His Italian grandmother was the reason he gets to represent Italy in international competitions.
“After the first tournament in Mexico, right after the match against Qatar that we lost, I received a call from my mother saying that my grandmother had passed away,” Carambula continued. “It was rough because when my dad was sick, I got to spend a month with my grandmother and we got really close. I would take her to the shower, to the bathroom..., cook, clean, change the bed...
“So it was crazy, and that’s why I’m proud of us and our staff because we kept it together, we kept the focus. We just had fun. Not even for one match were we thinking about this qualification. For us, it was using the wind that was there, using the people, just enjoying ourselves. And that was a big secret. We just enjoyed the journey and we just enjoyed playing together. I love the journey with this guy and the team.”
Rossi and Carambula during time-out
Obviously, despite all the hardships along the way, the journey to Tokyo was most definitely worth it. And being in Tokyo has been an experience.
“It’s awesome!” exclaimed Carambula. “The first impression, the thing that stuck with me the most, was going to lunch. Not because I like to eat, but because there are so many athletes from so many sports, and we make a lot of eye contact and that contact says, ‘Respect! You’re going through the same things I’m going through’. It’s not easy. There is a lot of sacrifice, a lot of losses, a lot of wins... The journey is complicated and it’s like that for everybody here. That’s the thing that I took the most from here... And it’s not over.”
It’s not over for Carambula and Rossi in Tokyo despite losses in their first two hard-fought matches in the pool stage, to USA’s Jake Gibb and Tri Bourne and to the new world number ones, Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar.
“Just being here, I got a little bit of the chills. It’s quite an accomplishment to do it outside the federation, with our resources. This is a bonus tournament for us, but of course, we want to do well. We’ve got to recover now and beat the Swiss team. With a victory we move on, probably to a lucky-losers match, but that’s what we want, and to continue playing a good ball.”
