Reigning Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum came to Austria for the A1 CEV EuroBeachVolley Vienna 2021 presented by Swatch determined to become the first team to win the event four times in a row and now the Norwegians are just one victory away from it.
The BeachVolley Vikings, who won the 2018, 2019 and 2020 editions of the tournament without dropping a single match, are back in the final in 2021 after they defeated Dutch Olympic medalists Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meewusen of the Netherlands in three sets (17-21, 21-17, 15-13) at the Red Bull Beach Arena.
“I don’t know if their plan was to tire me out, but they served a lot of short balls,” Mol explained. “It was really tiring, but we managed to stabilize our side out at some point and that brought us back to the game. We’re tired, but still have some energy left, so now let’s rest and refocus so we can fight for gold again.”
In the final, which will be played later this afternoon in Vienna, the Vikings will play not only to get their fourth continental title but also their country’s sixth, adding to victories of Jan Kvalheim/Bjorn Maaseide and Jorre Kjemperud/Vegard Hoidalen in the 1990s.
“We’re both really tired,” Sørum added. “I’m so proud of Anders, he fought really hard and did a great job, especially in getting some aces in important moments. It’s really impressive considering how tired he is, but Anders is always impressing me and today he did it again.”
The second semifinal, between Dutch Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot and Polish Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak, will happen also on Sunday afternoon.
