Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2019 - Playing before an over-flowing crowd of 12,000 beach volleyball fans, Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy of Russia overcame the support of the host country fans by capturing the men's gold medal here Sunday at the US$1-million FIVB World Championships presented by comdirect and ALDI Nord.
Quick links - Beach volleyball:
Competing in their first world championships together where the 10 days of competition at Am Rothenbaum Stadium featured a 216-match schedule for 96 men's and women teams from 38 countries, the third seeded Krasilnikov and Stoyanovskiy scored a 2-1 (19-21, 21-17, 15-11) win in 72 minutes over 12th-seeded Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler of Germany
With the win, the 22-year old Stoyanovskiy becomes the youngest men's FIVB world champion at 22 years, 9 months, and 11 days or just over 2 months younger than Andre Loyola (22 years, 11 months, 18 days) when he won the Vienna world championships in 2017 with Brazilian Evandro Goncalves.
Rebounding from a semifinal defeat - a rare event - to Thole and Wickler Saturday, top-seeded Anders Mol and Christian Sorum of Norway captured the bronze medal with a 2-1 (19-21, 21-15, 15-10) over 13thh-seeded Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb of the United States. Their match record on the FIVB World Tour during the Olympic qualifying cycle is now 42-4 with four tournament titles in eight events.
“It’s been crazy all week,” Mol said of the crowd, who packed Am Rothenbaum Stadium. “There were thousands of people who couldn’t get into this arena. That’s just amazing to see and I’m really happy to see that the sport is growing in this direction, especially here in Hamburg.”
Crabb and Bourne, who captured the Qinzhou (China) Open in October, were trying to end a U.S. drought on the World Championships podium. The last American medal was picked up by Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser, who took bronze in Stavanger, Norway in 2009.
It was the fourth meeting between the teams and the first time the Americans collected a set off the Norwegians. Mol and Sorum had previously defeated Crabb and Bourne in tournaments in Las Vegas; Jinjiang, China; and Itapema, Brazil.
