Lucerne, Switzerland, May 16, 2016 – Both only 17 years old, Eduarda ‘Duda’ Santos Lisboa and Ana Patricia Silva Ramos claimed the gold at the FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships on Monday in Lucerne. The youth olympic champions from Brazil defeated Russia’s Nadezda Makroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina 2-0 (21-18, 21-8) in the final.
The Russians tried to disorganize the Brazilian team by targeting Ana Patricia all the time. But the tall blocker stayed calm and kept on hammering the ball to the sand.
“I already expected to be served on a lot”, she said, “because of Duda’s reputation. She has been around longer and is ahead of me. I am kind of the new one.”
Every time she scored a winner Ana Patricia would raise her hands in a challenging way. “It was kind of a move to show my confidence”, she said. “Like ‘Why are you serving on me all the time?’. It was kind of a joke between us.”
In Lucerne Ana Patricia won her first FIVB age-group title besides the Youth Olympic gold in 2014 with Duda in Nanjing. Duda already collected seven medals before in her short career. She won silver at the 2013 U23, gold at the U19 in 2013 and 2014 with different partners and two gold (2016 Fortaleza, Maceio), one silver (2015 Puerto Vallarta) and one bronze (2015 Prague) with Elize Secomandi Maia at World Tour Opens.
But this U21 title is very special to her, Duda said. “Most of the best players in Brazil where U21 world champions before.” Brazil won six gold, one silver and 3 bronze medals before in the previous fourteen editions of the U21. “And it’s the only title I didn’t get yet. So now it was my turn. This was super important for me. This medal is definitely in my top three.”
Russia’s Kholomina (18) collected her first FIVB medal. Her more experienced partner Makroguzova (19) won silver at the 2013 U19 with Anna Gorbunova. It was the fourth medal for Russia in the women’s U21’s.
Canada wins the bronzeYouth olympic silver medallists Megan and Nicole McNamara from Canada won the bronze medal coming back from one set down (18-21, 23-21, 15-10) against USA’s Sarah Sponcil and Torrey Van Winden.
The 18-year old twins warded off three American match points in the second set to win it at their first set point. This was the turning point in the match as they continued their good play in the tiebreak.
“It’s always hard coming off of a really tough loss in the semifinals”, Megan said. “So we really had to bounce back and be strong. But we just decided that if we’re going to be disappointed about our loss in the semifinals it should be tonight and not right before another big medal game. So we just thought about how great it would be to be on the podium.”
It is the second FIVB bronze for the sisters since they also placed third at the 2014 U19 in Porto. In that same year they had a 17th place finish at the U21. It’s the third medal for Canada in the women’s U21 history.
Quick linksFIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championships Lucerne 2016Men - Qualification resultsWomen - Qualification resultsMen - Main draw resultsWomen - Main draw results