Beach volleyball veterans Barbara Seixas and Carolina Salgado celebrated their first victory as a team on Friday as the duo won the Superpraia, the last event in the Brazilian national season calendar, on the sands of Urca, in Rio de Janeiro.
Barbara and Carol celebrate first victory together
The team win the Superpraia, the last event in the Brazilian national season
Published 03:56, 25 Jun 2021
The 34-year-old Barbara, a Rio 2016 Olympic silver medallist, and the 33-year-old Carolina, a two-time U21 world champion, capped off a prolific month for the team at the top of the podium after defeating Andressa Cavalcanti and Vitoria Rodrigues 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) in the final.
Barbara and Carol, who joined forces at the beginning of the year, played in three tournaments in June and stepped on the podium in each of them, also taking bronze at the FIVB World Tour event in Sochi, Russia, and silver in the ninth stop of the Brazilian Tour, in Urca.
“I’m so happy,” Barbara said. “I’ve been trying to return to my highest level for some time and this partnership with Carol gave me the energy and the motivation I needed. She was a warrior this week and helped me so much. I can only thank her, our coaching staff and our friends and families, who have been supporting us.”
Selected to represent Brazil at the Tokyo Olympics, Rebecca Cavalcanti and Ana Patricia Ramos, who defeated Barbara and Carol in last week’s final, claimed bronze after a two-set (21-17, 21-12) victory against Taiana Lima and Hegeile ‘Hege’ Santos.
The men’s tournament was won by Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes and Arthur Mariano. The two, who played together in five World Tour events in 2021 and won a fifth in Cancun as their best result, downed former world champions Bruno Schmidt and Evandro Goncalves 2-0 (21-14, 21-19) in the gold medal match.
“Arthur was fantastic,” Guto said. “He pulled me to my first Superpraia final and I’m really happy that we managed to win it. But I’m also really happy to see Bruno playing at such a high level again after all he’s been through. We were opponents today but I really want to see Evandro and him at their best representing our country in the Olympics next month. I’ll be on my couch cheering for them, for sure.”
Back-to-back Brazilian champions Andre Loyola and George Wanderley also took their place on the podium as they finished third after a 2-0 (21-14, 21-16) triumph over Rio 2016 Olympian Pedro Solberg and his partner Arthur Lanci.
The event, which was played in the absence of Agatha Bednarczuk/Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa and Alison Cerutti/Alvaro Filho, also ended with individual awards for the country’s national season, which started in September 2020 and featured ten events.
· Most Valuable Players – Duda Lisboa/George Wanderley
· Best Servers – Duda Lisboa/Evandro Goncalves
· Best Setters – Taiana Lima/Oscar Guimaraes
· Best Hitters – Adrielson Santos/Duda Lisboa
· Best Blockers – Ana Patricia Ramos/Andre Loyola
· Best Defenders – Duda Lisboa/Guto Carvalhaes
· Rookie of the Year – Thamela Coradello/Arthur Mariano
· Most Improved Players – Hege Santos/ Adelmo Folha
· Most Popular Players (Fan voting) – Andressa Cavalcanti/Adrielson Santos
· Best Coaches – Marco Char (Agatha/Duda)/Ernesto Vogado (Andre/George)
