Lausanne, Switzerland, December 27, 2019 – Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy’s victory at the Rome 2019 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Finals meant that the 2018-19 season-ending tournament had a very familiar ring to it.
By beating Germany’s Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler 2-0 (21-16, 21-16) in the gold medal match at the Eternal City’s Foro Italico Olympic Park the Russian pair ensured that the podium line-up was the same as that at the Hamburg 2019 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships.
Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum defeated the USA’s Jacob Gibb and Taylor Crabb 2-0 (21-16, 21-15) earlier in the day to win bronze before Viacheslav and Krasilnikov brought the curtain down on the season.
“We just like the tournaments with ‘world’ in the name, that’s very good for us,” Stoyanovskiy said. “I’m glad we can play our best games in the best tournaments.
“We have played them in two finals before and we knew they were a really good team. They are a great sideout team and they served really well in this tournament. We played really well overall but the key for us was to keep our sideout solid.”
“When we first got together last year, we couldn’t imagine we would win the two most important tournaments of the season.”
Rome 2019 was one of three 5-Star events on the World Tour calendar, along with tournaments in Vienna and Gstaad.
All three offered $40,000 and 1200 ranking points for the gold medallists, $32,000 and 1080 points for the silver medallists, and $20,000 and 960 points for the bronze medallists.
Rome was hosting a World Tour event for the first time since 2013 and the Foro Italico Olympic Park once again proved a fitting backdrop to a top-level competition.
Victory in the Italian capital rounded off a stellar 10-months since the pair made their FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour debuts in Yangzhou, China.
However, their win in Rome was their only victory on the 5-Star circuit.
Mol and Sorum won the first of the year in Gstaad in the Swiss Alps when they defeated the Netherlands’ Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen 2-0 (21-17, 21-15). Evandro Goncalves and Bruno Schmidt won bronze when they held off Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo 2-1 (16-21, 21-17, 15-12).
The Vienna 5-Star then picked up where the Vienna 2017 World Championships and 2018 5-Star left off with the action taking place on courts built on The Donauinsel, an island in the middle of the River Danube.
Mol and Sorum won again, this time with a 2-0 (21-11, 21-17) defeat of Brazil’s Alison Cerutti and Alvaro Filho. Poland’s Grzegorz Fijalek and Michal Bryl claimed the bronze after edging out the USA’s Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena 2-1 (21-17, 17-21, 15-11).
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