A home farewell for the Austrian legends

The A1 CEV EuroBeachVolley 2021 presented by Swatch, from August 11-15, in Vienna, will mark the end of an era for Austrian and international beach volleyball as after a decade together, home heroes Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst will play together for a final time.

Arguably the most successful men’s team in Austrian beach volleyball, the 40-year-old Doppler and the 38-year-old Horst have first become partners at the end of 2011 and have since then been at the same side of the net for 96 international tournaments.

Their longevity and great success has made of them the face of Austrian beach volleyball for the last decade, a period in which they competed in two Olympics (London 2012 and Rio 2016) and won 13 international medals, most notably silver at the 2017 World Championships and bronze at the 2014 EuroBeachVolley.

“We got together in the autumn of 2011 with the goal of trying to qualify to the Olympics at the Continental Cup,” Doppler recalled. “And what we got to accomplish was amazing. We played in the Olympics twice, won medals at the World Championships, the EuroBeachVolley and in three Grand Slams. We fought with the best and built a strong name for our team in international volleyball.”

The decision to end such a long and successful partnership comes from a simple conclusion – with both approaching the end of their careers, it’s impossible for them to compete as a team against young and physically stronger opponents.

“We’ll soon be 41 and 39 and it has become incredibly difficult to be successful against younger athletes,” Horst explained. “I remember seven years ago we took Oleg Stoyanovskiy, who was 17 at the time, to a training camp as a sparring partner and he just won an Olympic silver medal. Mol and Sørum, who took gold in Tokyo, are 24 and 25. It’s very clear that the physical aspect of the game has become more and more important in recent years.”

Doppler and Horst’s last tournament together starts on Thursday and their opening match at the Red Bull Beach Arena will be against Czechs Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner at 12.45 CEST. Their other opponents on pool B are Olympic semifinalists Martins Plavins and Edgards Tocs of Latvia and Swiss Marco Krattiger and Florian Breer.

“Everything is possible in this group, so the key will be focusing on one match at a time and one point at a time,” Horst added. “Our pool might not have some of the top names of international beach volleyball at the moment, but certainly presents us with a difficult task for a number of reasons.”

Win or lose, Doppler and Horst are set for an unforgettable farewell in their home sand Vienna as they will get to play their last tournament together in front of their passionate fans, who have always played a massive role in their careers.

“We’ll have the fans behind us and we want to join forces with them again and present some good beach volleyball for one last time,” Doppler remarked. “It’s fantastic that we get to do it in front of our home crowd. The red and white fans carried us to the final of the World Championship in 2017 and I can say is ‘goosebumps don’t lie’”.