Budapest, Hungary, August 11, 2019 – Samuele Cottafava and Jakob Windisch completed their run from the Budapest 1-Star qualifying rounds to gold medal on Sunday and in doing so topped an FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament for the first time.
The Italians defeated Norway’s Daniel Bergerud and Lars Tveit Retterholt 2-1 (21-16, 19-21, 15-9) having won seven matches in the Hungarian capital. Their previous best was reaching the round of 12 at the Gothenburg 1-Star.
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Silver is the Norwegians first World Tour medal. Their previous best was a quarterfinal place in the Ios Island 1-Star in June.
The Hungarian capital hosted a World Tour tournament for the first time, and it took place in a 1,000-seater arena at Lupa Beach which is located 20 minutes from the centre of Budapest. The winning teams in Budapest collected the €1,000 first-place prizes and claimed 200 Tokyo 2020 Olympic points.
Toms Smedins and Haralds Regza won their second World Tour medal of 2019 when they defeated Kensuke Shoji and Masato Kurasaka in the bronze medal match.
The Latvians beat the Japanese 2-0 (21-18, 23-21) to add Budapest bronze to the silver they won at the Gothenburg 1-Star.
