Sarah Sponcil and Kelly Claes claimed the first FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour gold in their career as they topped the podium at the Sochi 4-star on Saturday. The American pair had previously collected two silvers and a bronze on the World Tour.
Sponcil & Claes snatch maiden World Tour gold
Huberli & Betschart and Makroguzova & Kholomina complete the Sochi podium
Published 07:22, 29 May 2021
Switzerland’s Tanja Huberli and Nina Betschart settled for the Sochi silver, their first medal of that colour, to add it to the one gold and four bronze medals in their World Tour showcase.
The bronze went to the home favourites, top-seeded Nadezda Makroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina. It is their first bronze on the World Tour. They also won silver at the second Cancun event this year. Previously, they had two gold medals on the Tour.
The women’s podium in Sochi
With rain falling from the evening Sochi sky, the opponents entered the gold medal match carefully sizing each other up. Gradually, Sponcil and Claes started widening a gap. Huberli and Betschart recovered from a three-point deficit to set the score level at 14-14 and prompt a nip-and-tuck epilogue, in which Claes put away the 21-19 winner with a kill block. As the rain eased away, the fierce battle continued into the next set, with the lead going back and forth. But when it came to money time, the 14th-seeded Americans stayed more focused to celebrate with a 21-17 victory as Sponcil hammered the winning point.
“I think this entire tournament we’ve just been taking it one point at a time. There are so many great teams here and it was a long road to the finish line, but I have an amazing partner and we just communicated really well and had faith in each other, so I’m really proud of her,” an elated Sarah Sponcil told Volleyball World after the final.
“We came in, knowing what we had to do to try and qualify. So we had to get a medal and that is what we did,” Kelly Claes added.
In the first set of the rainy bronze medal match against Latvia’s Anastasija Kravcenoka and Tina Graudina, Makroguzova and Kholomina were well in control of the scoreboard. The Latvians kept the fight on to trail close behind, but never managed to catch up. Makroguzova put in the winning touch for 21-18. The second set was all about the home side. The Russians stormed into it on a 6-1 and never looked back to cruise on to an emphatic 21-11 close.
“It was our home tournament, so we needed a good result. We even went for the gold, but the bronze is also really good, because we played some very difficult games against some really good teams,” Nadezda Makroguzova said. “It was a really cool tournament. The organisation in the safety bubble was really high level and we felt comfortable.”
“I want to thank all the fans for coming here to support us even in such a bad weather. I am very happy that there were so many of them. They charged us so much during the match,” Svetlana Kholomina added.
In the semifinals earlier on Saturday, Sponcil and Claes disappointed the home crowd with a 2-0 (23-21, 21-17) shutout of Makroguzova and Kholomina, while Huberli and Betschart mastered a 2-0 (21-18, 21-16) clean slate against Kravcenoka and Graudina.
