European Championships, AVP Atlanta both won by the new and familiar

It’s almost eerie, how they played out: two tournaments of enormous magnitude, one in Europe, one in America, one gender coming to a familiar results, the other a wholly unprecedented one.

In Vienna, Austria, site of the European Championships, the team we have seen win so many times in such a small window, the team who was recently awarded an Olympic gold medal, the team of whom the world never seems to tire, won again. Anders Mol and Christian Sorum continued the impossible this weekend, winning a fourth straight European Championship, defeating Dutch youngsters Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot, 21-19, 24-26, 15-12.

In Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States, the man many thought might be finished winning, the man we’ve seen dance and joke and giggle his way through an endearing career, won once more. Casey Patterson and Chase Budinger may not have been expected to win the AVP’s opening event in Atlanta last weekend, as Norway was, but they’re no stranger to victories, and they returned to California with one more, beating Chaim Schalk and Theo Brunner, 14-21, 21-16, 15-13.

Just as the men’s side crowned familiar winners in both Vienna and Atlanta, the women’s side crowned new ones. Tanja Huberli and Nina Betschart kept the European Championship in Switzerland – countrywomen Anouk Verge-Depre and Joana Heidrich won a year ago – beating another pair of Dutch youngsters in Raisa Schoon and Katja Stam, 21-15, 21-12. With the exception of a one-star in Baden in 2020 that didn’t count for points, it marked their first victory, perhaps signaling the rise of yet another elite team on the horizon.

In Atlanta, too, new victors topped the podium, as AVP rookies Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, fresh off an undefeated NCAA college season, won their first AVP as a team, defeating Olympians Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes, 21-12, 19-21, 16-14.

Two tournaments. Two continents.

Two oddly similar results: the familiar and the promising new.

The Depth of the Dutch on display in Vienna

A week before the European Championships, Mart van Werkhoven sat in a basement gym in Sofia, Bulgaria, discussing the astonishing rise of Netherlands beach volleyball. What began with a single elite team in Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schuil paved the way for another, Sanne Keizer and Marleen Van Iersel, who paved the way for another, Alex Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, which led to another, Nummerdor and Christiaan Varenhorst and another, Varenhorst and Steven van de Velde – and another and another and another. The Netherlands is now loaded from top to bottom, on both the men’s and women’s side, with three elite partnerships regularly contending for titles.

After winning in Gstaad, Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot claimed second in Vienna, losing in the finals to Mol and Sorum. Vaarenhorst and van de Velde, who made a brilliant run to close the Olympic quad, won their pool, beating Olympic silver medalists Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy. Brouwer and Meeuwsen, forever the consistent bombers on the FIVB Tour, finished fourth, just a month out from winning a gold medal in Ostrava.

On the women’s side, Schoon and Stam, who have been steadily rising through the qualifiers throughout 2021, won a silver medal, and two other Dutch teams – Sanne Keizer and Madelein Meppelink, Van Iersel and Pleun Ypma – finished in the top 10.

Rest assured, more teams are on the rise. In Bulgaria, Werkhoven and Dirk Boehle would win gold, and Esmee Priem and Iris Reinders finished fifth.

The foundation laid by Nummerdor and Schuil is now proving to be the groundwork for one of the deepest federations in the world.

Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka remain on the cusp of greatness

So much of the European beach volleyball attention will go, justifiably, to Anders Mol and Christian Sorum. What they have been doing these past three years is without precedent. Four straight European Championship victories is without precedent. But what Latvians Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka have done in the past three months is also impressive – whether they have the medals to prove it or not.

For the third time in four tournaments, Kravcenoka and Graudina have finished fourth, the same place they finished in Sochi, Gstaad, and the Tokyo Olympic Games. Ask any player, and they’ll tell you that fourth is the most gut-wrenching finish possible, coming so close to a medal in two matches..and then falling short. But the fact that Graudina and Kravcenoka are giving themselves the opportunity for a medal so consistently is sign enough that their breakthrough is coming, and coming soon.

Germany rising

With Germany’s No. 1 pairing of Laura Ludwig and Margareta Kozuch not on the entry list for the European Championships, it would have been reasonable to assume that Germany would be somewhat of an underdog to medal in Vienna. That assumption would have been very, very wrong.

All four German teams – Karla Borger and Julia Sude, Chantal Laboureur and Cinja Tillmann, Victoria Bieneck and Isabel Schneider, Kim Behrens and Sandra Ittlinger – finished in the top 10 in Vienna. Borger and Sude, just a week after failing to break pool in Tokyo, took bronze, marking their first medal of the season.

Such is the nature of beach volleyball. One week, you’re 0-3; the next, your only loss comes in three sets to the eventual gold medallists.

What this portends for the German federation, who knows, but it’s a sign of tremendous depth – and lots of options for potential teams as the next Olympic quad begins in the near future.