Credit: volleyball.org.au
Australians Izac Carracher and Mark Nicolaidis have had a fairytale finish to their campaign on the Gold Coast, winning gold at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures event.
Backing up their gold medal performance from last week’s Australian Beach Volleyball Tour, the Aussie pair came out firing to claim a straight sets win 2:0 (21-11, 21-16) over Canadian pair Jake MacNeil and Alex Russel.
Having met earlier in the competition, with the Aussies claiming victory in their first meeting, and making their way through the draw undefeated, they were in prime position for another victory.
Nicolaidis started the game strong for the Aussies, scoring a commanding opening point that set them up
“That game went really quickly for me – thinking back to that first point feels like 10 seconds ago,” Nicolaidis said.
“To get that first point, and flush out all the nerves at the start, and be really in the game from then on, right through until the end.
“We’ve been working really hard back in South Australia, and doing all the work in the lead up to make sure we can put together tournament after tournament.
“It’s really rewarding to see some of that progress that we’ve been able to make over the last few months pay off,” he said.
Carracher couldn’t have been happier with a gold medal in his debut World Tour event.
“We came up against a really tough Canadian side, we played them in the first round of pool play in some really tough conditions as well,” Carracher said.
“We know their blocker Alex is a big boy, and their defender Jake is an absolute machine, so we knew we had to bring our A Game, and be really strong on the service line.
“Mark absolutely brought it in that facet of the game, so our defence came easy and we just needed to side out to get the win.
“To be able to get the gold, in front of a home crowd here at Coolangatta is pretty awesome,” he said.
Australia claimed two spots on the podium, with Thomas Hodges and Max Guehrer defeating Zdybek and Lewandowski of Poland to win bronze.
Guehrer said today’s bronze felt like redemption after a bronze, fourth and fifth on the three stops of the 2022 Australian Beach Volleyball Tour.
“The last four days have been great, before that we didn’t have the best national tour,” he said.
“We had a lot of disappointing performances and not being able to convert on Sunday, so it was great to come out here today and right those wrongs out here in front of our family and friends.”
“We put together a good four days and finishing it off with a good win here is great,” Hodges added, competing at his first Beach Volleyball World Tour event.
“We head off to Thailand in a few days for another Futures event, so we’ll look to better our performance there and keep building as a team.”
For full results from the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Futures – Click https://en.volleyballworld.com/beachvolleyball/competitions/beach-pro-tour-2022/events/future/coolangatta-australia/schedule/
The action continues at Coolangatta Beach tomorrow, with the final day of competition of the Australian Beach Volleyball Schools Cup. Click https://abvsc.volleyball.org.au for more information.
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