Belgium have never won a medal at the FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships before setting foot in Roi-Et, Thailand.

The pressure was clearly heavy for the young Belgians as they faced a well-experienced and confident Austrian pair. However, the patience and composure that Joppe Van Langendonck & Kyan Vercauteren practically put the three-set match and gold medal beyond doubt in their hands.

Van Langendonck & Vercauteren emerged from the ashes to clinch the gold medal, following their down-to-the-wire win over Austria’s Timo Hammarberg & Tim Berger 2-1 (18-21, 21-19, 15-13).

“We are world champions,” Van Langendonck exclaimed.

“We are not super used to the sand, as we’re both indoor players. It’s super strange now to be world champions because we only had two months to prepare. It’s crazy that we won. We never achieved anything like this, so it’s super nice.

“This win will help for people to look into investing in us because maybe we could be the next ones in our country for this sport.”

Hammarberg & Berger did everything right in the first set, implementing a good sideout game that wore their opponents down to mount an early lead. The Belgians tried to fight back but their service blunder ended the set in the favor of the Austrians 21-18.

With the Austrians in the lead in the second frame, the Belgians’ great hustle at the net foiled three attempts of their rivals to trail within one point and their patient offense paid off to be in the driver’s seat at 19-18.

Hammarberg tried a sharp angle drop shot that tied the score at 19-all, but Belgium retaliated with the same play that gave them the one-point edge, until a costly error on another drop ball by Austria gave away the set to Belgium 21-19.

In the third set, a block gave the Belgians the advantage at 13-12, but Berger’s spike tied things up. A clever Belgian drop shot confused the Austrian block and then a good sideout pass gave them the opportunity to steal gold medal victory at 15-13.

“It was very tough. We lost the first set and we were thinking if it was possible to win or not. But we kept fighting and then we won the second set. Then we thought at that point, maybe we can be world champions. We started the third set well and we did not make a lot of mistakes, so we won it.,” Vercauteren said.

“In my mind it was just to score and focus on the ball. Nothing else. I didn’t even look at the scoreboard for the score. We just tried to score every ball and then wait and see.”

In their men’s semifinal encounter, Van Langendonck/Vercauteren made a wonderful comeback after losing the opening set 21-17 to top-ranked duo Arthur Canet & Téo Rotar of France. The Belgians refused to give up and succeeded with a winning margin 21-19 in the next frame, and then came up with a spirited win in the final set 15-11.

• Watch U21 World Championship action live on the Beach Volleyball World YouTube channel

Canet/Rotar drew first blood against Pedro/Henrique 21-16 but could not maintain enough momentum to finish off their bronze medal match with the Brazilians, as the latter fought back with a two-point winning margin 21-19 in the second frame to extend the match.

The Frenchmen regained their momentum and led 6-3 in the third set, Pedro tried to get their side back to within one marker, but Rotar’s towering spike gave France a wider cushion. The Europeans held on to their lead until Canet’s roll shot to the line sealed their bronze medal win at 15-12.

It is the second time from a French team to win the U21 Men’s World Championship bronze medal, following Romain Di Giantommaso/Maxime Thiercy victory in 2014 in Larnaca, Cyprus.

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2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships
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