• Chloe Loreen wins gold on Beach Pro Tour debut
• Kool & Svenssohn earn first international medal at very first participation on Beach Pro Tour as a pair
• 40-year-old Nystrom and 16-year-old Gusarova of Cyprus also make their first Beach Pro Tour podium
25-year-old Chloe Loreen made her Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour debut in the most impressive of ways. She and her 27-year-old partner Molly Shaw (pictured in the main photo) won Friday’s all-American final at the women’s Futures tournament in Pirae Tahiti. Kelly Kool & Tiffany Svenssohn settled for silver, while Erika Nystrom & Alexandra Gusarova of Cyprus completed the podium with bronze.
Third-seeded Shaw & Loreen did not drop a single set in the four matches they played in French Polynesia last week. In the semifinals, they produced a 2-0 (21-14, 21-10) victory over top-seeded Nystrom & Gusarova, before mastering a 2-0 (21-13, 21-18) sweep of the gold medal showdown against second-seeded Kool & Svenssohn. While Loreen had never played on the Tour before, Shaw had a few previous appearances with different teammates and even earned a full set of medals, one of each colour, in 2022, including a Dubai Challenge silver.
Kool & Svenssohn earned their first international medal (for either of them) also at their very first participation on the Beach Pro Tour as a pair. The American duo also reached the final on an impeccable run of three consecutive straight-set victories, crowned by a 2-0 (21-13, 21-11) win over one of the teams representing France, Eleonore Johansen & Celine Collette.
The Cypriot pairing of 40-year-old Nystrom and 16-year-old Gusarova also made it to a Beach Pro Tour podium for the first time, both as a team and individually. Nystrom had some world-level podiums in her career, but this was the first time she medalled on the Beach Pro Tour. The duo first appeared on the Tour some two years ago, when Gusarova was only 14, and managed to earn their first hardware this week, at their third tournament together. In the third-place match, Nystrom & Gusarova defeated Johansen & Collette in three sets, 2-1 (21-15, 19-21, 15-11).
10 teams representing five different countries took part in the women’s Pirae Tahiti Futures. The next Futures stops on the Beach Pro Tour are a men’s tournament in Madrid, Spain and a double-gender event in Pingtan, China, both from 9 to 12 May.
Pirae Tahiti Futures - women: results and standings