Herrera & Gavira hope to give another Olympics a try

A fifth participation in the Olympics has just ended for Athens 2004 silver medallist Pablo Gavira. But the 39-year-old does not exclude the possibility of playing at Paris 2024.

“First we have to qualify… The level is crazy!” he told Volleyball World just after he and his long-time partner Adrian Gavira lost their Tokyo 2020 round of 16 match to Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy of ROC in a hard-fought battle.

“We hope to continue together,” 33-year-old three-time Olympian Gavira added. “First, we have to finish this season and we’ll see the result. We are happy together. We enjoy playing together, so it will be nice to try to qualify for Paris.”

In Japan, Herrera and Gavira finished their pool in third place on a 1-2 win-loss record, after pushing top-level opponents like Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum and ROC’s Ilya Leshukov and Konstantin Semenov to extended sets. In their lucky-loser match, they eliminated Poland’s Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak to make the round of 16. Even in their knockout game against world champs Krasilnikov and Stoyanovskiy, they fought bravely and succumbed only after a fierce battle.

Despite the disappointment with their loss and elimination, the two Spaniards leave Tokyo with positive feelings.

“We played very well in the pool phase. We also played a great match against Poland. But then, you know, you are playing against the world champions. We didn’t play well enough to win,” said Herrera. “After all, we played very well. Adri pushed me to win every point. I am very proud of him because he played amazing.”

“We are happy about the Olympic Games in Tokyo. As Pablo said, we had a great tournament, playing against the best players of the world. And we lost to the world champions. So we are happy about that,” confirmed Gavira. “Right now we are sad because we got eliminated, but we are really happy about the tournament as a whole. And Pablo’s performance was the same as in his first Olympic Games.”

Later on, after they had had some more time to reflect on their latest Olympic experience, Herrera and Gavira shared their thoughts on social media.

“We are very proud of ALL of our team,” they tweeted.

“We've given everything we had and we've fallen fighting,” they stated on Facebook.

Quick links:
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Schedule and results
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Beach volleyball
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour
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