Norway’s Adrian Mol & Jo Gladsoy Sunde are competing at the FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships for the first time as a team, and in their first exploit in qualification, they escaped with a three-set victory (21-18, 17-21, 15-12) against Poland’s Aleksander Czachorowski & Artem Besarab.
Beach U21 World Champs 2023
Mol & Sunde dream of being best in the world
The young Norwegian athletes are teaming up for the first time and have a clear pursuit of success
Published 05:02, 07 Nov 2023
“The first game in every tournament is always very hard to play,” Sunde said. “It’s very tough because you have to get in, do a side-out. And we haven’t played together before.
“Our expectation is to play good volleyball and play together as a team and keep the morale high. It’s really hot here so we have to focus on every ball,” Mol added.
Adrian Mol
Both are dedicated to sport and aiming to be the best in the world and they are doing that by being the best teammate to each other and putting their best foot forward.
“My goal is to be the best in my family. It doesn’t sound pretty big, but it is,” Adrian said on his big goal, which probably rings true since he is Olympic champion and current World No. 1 beach volleyball athlete Anders Mol’s younger brother.
Jo Gladsoy Sunde
Sunde’s dream is also to be one of the best in the sport and he has somehow made some steps towards that, being a four-time Beach Pro Tour gold medalist and a European champion with regular partner Markus Mol, Adrian’s brother.
“My goal is to be one of the best in beach volleyball. To compete in the highest level and be the best of myself,” Sunde said.
Both are optimistic about how they can still mesh together, especially coming from a tight-knit program that has proven to pave way for its athletes to achieve individual and collective successes.
“Our family is a big part of beach volleyball in our country. The national team program is helping a lot. My dad and my mom, they are the coaches, so it’s really easy for us to get practice, which is really nice.” Mol ended.