The Olympic Games Paris 2024 women's beach volleyball gold medal match is set for Friday, 9 August at Champ de Mars with Brazil’s Ana Patricia Silva Ramos and Eduarda ‘Duda’ Santos Lisboa versus Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson. No doubt the raucous venue will continue to be filled with roaring cheers for both sides.
The bronze medal match willl see the Australian silver medallists from Tokyo 2020 Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho Del Solar against the Swiss duo of Tanja Hüeberli and Nina Brunner.
Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson of Team Canada celebrate after defeating Team Switzerland in the women's beach volleyball semi-final
Canada’s Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson have already guaranteed their country’s first-ever Olympic medal in women’s beach volleyball (the men earned bronze with the sport’s debut at Atlanta 1996, coached by Humana-Paredes’ father).
Both women had good showings at Tokyo 2020 playing with different partners and advancing into the quarterifinals. They joined together in 2022, and this marks both of their Olympic best.
They advanced into the gold medal match after a hard fought semi-final win against the Switzerland team of Hüberli and Brunner that saw the Swiss win the first set 21-14, with the Canadians fighting back to win the next two sets 22-20, 15-12.
Humana-Paderes said: “I don’t think we played great volleyball, but we didn’t let it go. We weren’t going to let it slip out of our hands. You feel a sense of renewal, and it was anyone’s game at that point.”
Looking ahead to the medal match against Brazil, she added: “I don’t think we’ve played our best volleyball yet. I think it’s somewhere inside and hopefully tomorrow we can bring it out.
“There’s still stuff left in the tank and there’s more we can give.”
Eduarda Santos Lisboa and Ana Patricia Silva Ramos of Team Brazil celebrate after beating Team Australia in the women's beach volleyball semi-final
Brazil’s Santos Lisboa first teamed up with Silva Ramos at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games, a short-lived pairing that saw them win the gold medal. They both competed at Tokyo 2020 with different playing partners - Lisboa was eliminated in the round of 16 and Ramos in the quarter-finals. Shortly thereafter they joined forces in 2022. Now they are the No. 1-ranked team in the world and in a position to take home the silver or the gold.
The dramatic semi-finals match saw the duo narrowly defeat the Tokyo silver medallists from Australia. The Australians took an early lead in the first set 22-20 but were unable to hold off the Brazilians, who fought back to win the second set 21-15, the tiebreaker saw a match-highlight rally with Brazil winning the final set 15-12.
“It is a dream,” said Santos Lisboa on advancing into the final, “a dream we have been fighting for since the beginning (of our partnership) and I don't even know what to say.”
Silva Ramos said: “It is still not the gold, but if God wants, it will be. This is something I have never imagined in my whole life, to be really honest with you.”
Spanish Beach Volleyball Teams Shine
Spain's men's and women's beach volleyball teams had a good day in the finals that were played throughout this Monday. Both women’s Alvárez-Moreno and men’s Herrera-Gavira won, lamenting the public and the country about the chances of getting a medal in the coming days.
In the women's final eighth, the Latvian pair Tina-Anastasija defeated the German Muller-Tilman by 2-1; and the Spanish Alvárez and Moreno won 2-1 to the Dutch Stam and Schoon; the Canadian Melissa and Brandie beat 2-0 to the U.S. Nuss and Kloth. Also passed the Brazilian couple Ana Patricia-Duda (2-0 contra las japonesas Akiko-Ishii-).
In the men's octaves, the Spanish Herrera and Gavira defeated Poles Bryl and Losiak 2–0; and the Norwegian Mol-Sorum 2–1 to the Staten Evans and Budinger; and USA Partain-Benesh scored 2–2 against the Italians Cottafava and Nicolai. Finally, the Qatari Cherif-Amed played 2-0 against the Chilean Grimalt and Grimald.
Alvarez and Moreno's Comeback Victory
Just a couple of hours after well-seasoned Spaniards Pablo Herrera & Adrian Gavira qualified for the men’s quarterfinals at the Paris 2024 beach volleyball tournament, their young female compatriots Daniela Alvarez & Tania Moreno, who are trained by the same coach, Francisco Marco, followed suit and advanced the last eight in the women’s tournament with a shocking victory over medal favourites Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon of the Netherlands.
18th-seeded Alvarez & Moreno mounted a stunning comeback from a set down against the eighth-seeded Dutch standouts to celebrate a 2-1 (18-21, 21-19, 15-13) victory.
After a nip-and-tack battle through of the first set, Stam & Schoon scored three in a row to reach set point at 20-17 and, shortly after, took the lead in the match, handing the opponents their first set loss in the tournament. They were well on their way to winning in straight sets at 18-14 in the second set, when Alvarez & Moreno started their phenomenal turnaround. The 22-year-old Spaniards produced six consecutive points for a 20-18 set point before leveling the match score. The tight duel continued in the tie-breaker, but after 9-9, Alvarez & Moreno took control of the scoreboard for good. They reached a triple match point at 14-11. The Dutch denied it twice, but finally Alvarez closed the match with a spike on two for the 15-13 winner. Moreno shined with a match-high 26 points, including two aces, while Stam finished with 21.
Alvarez and Moreno's Reactions
“All the emotions just showed up at the end. I just grabbed Dani with all my strength and then jumped into my family,” and elated Moreno said after the match. “I couldn’t realize what we were doing and now I am just grateful for the opportunity, for all the people out there, supporting and pushing the team during the entire Olympic race, and grateful to feel the support of my family. We are just following our Olympic dream right now and I’m happy to share that with Dani too. I am so happy for Pablo and his team too, because he is a role model, not only in beach volleyball, but in sports.”
“Tania and I have been playing together for a long time, since we were 15 years old. We share so many moments on and off the court and getting to do this together, the trust that we have in each other, the confidence that we have in our team – all that combines in success. I am so grateful to have the team I have and share this with Tania,” Alvarez told the FIVB. “Katja and Raisa are both amazing players. Raisa is our year, so we’ve been playing together in under-age since we were super young. They took us out of the medals at the Elite16 in Espinho, they took us out of the medals back in Munich at the 2022 European Championship and they took us out of the World Champs in October, so we knew it was going to be such a hard game. They played amazing, but we managed to get the win, so we are super excited.
“Tania and I kind of have a history with comebacks. We just keep fighting and give our all. You don’t get to play at this amazing venue every day, so we wanted to spend more time playing here. We got so much energy from the crowd. I got so much energy from Tania. Seeing our parents and our families in the crowd was just amazing! I am speechless! This is really cool!”
Up Next for Alvarez and Moreno
Next, Alvarez & Moreno will face the winner of the eighthfinal match between Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson and USA’s Kristen Nuss & Taryn Kloth, starting at 18:00 local time (16:00 UTC) on Monday.
“That’s going to be a tough game too,” Moreno commented. “Now we just have to reset, recover, prepare for the next game and put in everything that we have. It’s a big opportunity that doesn’t always happen, so we’ll just use it to show our best game and fight for the medals – for our team and for Spain.”
Mol and Sorum Dominate
In the game that followed, second-seeded Mol & Sorum prevailed over 19th-seeded Evans & Budinger to register an emphatic 2-0 (21-16, 21-14) win, outplaying the opponents on all counts. Mol was on fire and led the way with six kill blocks, three aces and 11 kills in attack, including the match winner. The other three players on the court finished with 12 points each.
Spain’s Herrera & Gavira will be Mol & Sorum’s opponents in one of the quarterfinals on Wednesday.
The Spanish Dream
Alvarez and Moreno's victory is a testament to the growing strength of Spanish beach volleyball. Their impressive comeback against the Dutch pair is a sign of their potential, and a source of inspiration for beach volleyball fans in Spain. With their sights set on the medals, Alvarez and Moreno are looking to make history in Paris. They're the future of Spanish beach volleyball, and they're making a strong statement on the world stage.
