Brunner-Huberli win “most intense” first gold medal at Tepic Elite16

The idea was to medal in Guadalajara. For Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli to play their first Challenge event in two years. To feel the pressure of being the one seed, the expectations of a medal. Of getting every team’s best shot, and to hand it right back, that their best wasn’t good enough.

It didn’t work.

It worked out better than planned.

Brunner and Huberli did not medal in last weekend’s Guadalajara Challenge. Instead, they finished ninth, upset by qualifiers Sophie Bukovec and Heather Bansley. But those reps? That loss? They paved the way for a far bigger moment: A gold medal at this week’s Tepic Elite16 which marked, almost unbelievably, the first gold medal they’ve won as a team.

“We both wanted to win so much because we’ve been on this Tour for so long and already we’ve made semifinals and finals but we’ve never won,” said Huberli who, it must be noted, has won two European Championships with Brunner, in 2021 and 2023. “The last two days are probably the most intense days in our head because we were so focused. We just wanted to win and it was really hard.”

Until the finals, they made it look remarkably easy, sweeping five straight opponents, including No. 5 Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes (21-15, 21-19) in the quarterfinals and No. 4 Carol Salgado and Barbara Seixas (21-17, 21-17) in the semifinals. After another dominant 21-14 first set win in the gold medal match over the Netherlands’ Raisa Schoon and Katja Stam, it seemed the Swiss machine would roll on, a perfect, uninterrupted run to gold. But Stam and Schoon were there by no accident. Like Switzerland, they also hadn’t dropped a match, rolling through Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth in pool play, 21-15, 21-13. It was no fluke, as they similarly dominated Italians Marta Menegatti and Valentina Gottardi in the semifinals, closing a 21-10 second set win on a 14-3 run.

(More on the tough tourney for the USA below).

While no such run would be allowed by the Swiss, Schoon and Stam held on to win the second, 21-19, forcing a third, showing shades reminiscent of their first final encounter, in the 2023 Doha Elite16 finals. Then, as on Sunday, Switzerland won the first set and dropped the second. But Sunday showed a different Swiss team, one that was holding opponents to just 40 percent side out on the weekend. One final time, their defense prevailed, holding on for a 19-17 third set win to claim their first Beach Pro Tour gold medal.

“They put so much pressure on us and they played so good and it was such a close game,” said Huberli, who finished with a tournament-leading 26 blocks. “It makes the win so much more valuable and more special.”

Special, too, for the federation as a whole, as Brunner and Huberli’s gold medal follows that of Esmee Bobner and Zoe Verge-Depre, who won their first as a team last weekend in Guadalajara.

Two weekends in Mexico, two debut gold medals.

Was it how they planned it? Perhaps not.

It was better.

“We are super, super happy about this,” Brunner said. “It was a real fight, a tough game. We’ve waited a long time. It’s unbelievable.”

Carol Salgado, Barbara Seixas clinch bid to Paris Olympic Games

An individual who has experienced a similar wait, though for different reasons, joined Brunner and Huberli on the podium. Carol Salgado has been one of the top players on the FIVB or Beach Pro Tour for more than a decade, nearly two. She has won nine tournaments, more than a dozen silver medals and 15 more bronze. But she has, almost unbelievably — roughly as difficult to believe that the Swiss had never before won an Elite16 — never been an Olympian.

That changed Sunday.

Salgado and Barbara Seixas’ bronze medal on Sunday, in which they beat Menegatti and Gottardi 22-20, 21-23, 25-23, officially sealed their bid to the Paris Olympic Games, where they will join Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa as Brazil’s top two pairs.

“Oh, my God,” Carol said after the bronze medal win. “It means so much, this game, this medal. The Italians are an amazing team, it’s always a great fight against them. But me and Barbara, we were strong in our heads. I’m really, really proud of us.”

It is the seventh medal of the Olympic qualifying period for Barbara and Carol, and No. 12 of their partnership, which began in 2022.

Swedish jump-setters continue torrid gold-medal spree

Such a count is an impressive one, no doubt. But, somehow, it almost pales in comparison to that of the men’s gold medalists from the Tepic Elite16: Sweden’s David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig.

As they did a year ago, Ahman and Hellvig won gold in Tepic, this time stumping Brazilians George Wanderley and Andre Loyola 21-17, 19-21, 15-10. Tepic marked the seventh straight final for Sweden, a run in which they have laid claim to five gold medals, including a second straight European Championship.

“I feel amazing,” Ahman said. “It was such an incredible game and we managed to win.”

Taking bronze for their first Elite16 medal on the Beach Pro Tour was Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz, who have collected three medals in five events in 2024.

Disappointing showing for USA at Tepic Elite16

Notably absent from the Tepic Elite16 podium was an American flag.

In their debut event of the 2024 season, Andy Benesh and Miles Partain finished ninth, bowing out to Poland’s Bartosz Losiak and Michal Bryl (17-21, 18-21). Hours later, Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner were swept by the Netherlands’ Steven Van de Velde and Matthew Immers (14-21, 16-21), who avenged an astonishing loss in the Guadalajara quarterfinals.

The women, too, settled for a pair of ninths. After barely breaking pool, Nuss and Kloth were eliminated by Germans Svenja Muller and Cinja Tillmann (20-22, 22-24) in a rematch of last year’s Beach Pro Tour Finals gold medal match. Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes were upset by Brazil’s Taina Silva and Victoria Lopes (21-12, 18-21, 9-15).

Both Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk and Chase Budinger and Miles Evans fell in the qualifier, creating an even bigger gap in the Olympic race to Crabb and Brunner.

The next event on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour is the Xiamen Challenge in China, which begins with Thursday’s qualifier.