Beach volleyball: Twins Javier and Joaquin Bello become first British players to win a Beach Pro Tour event
The Spanish-born, English-raised twins have written British beach volleyball history with their victory at the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Rio de Janeiro.
Beach Volleyball
British twins Javier Bello and Joaquin Bello have become the nation’s first champions of an elite international beach volleyball event.
The Spanish-born pair, who moved to London when they were 10, won the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in November, defeating another brother duo in Nico and Tomi Capogrosso of Argentina in the final.
It is the first time athletes representing either England or Great Britain have won gold at a major beach volleyball tournament, where the Bello twins came from a set down to win a thrilling final 22-24, 30-28, 15-13.
They almost did not make it to Brazil due to funding, but after acquiring the necessary funds and making their way through qualifiers, the Bellos completed a fairytale run to win the Elite16 title.
Javier told BBC Sport, "It's a very, very expensive tournament and our budget has already run out for the year, so we paid for that ourselves. We had the opportunity to go and we didn't want to feel any regret. We always feel a little bit like David v Goliath on court.”
It is not the first milestone in the eye-catching careers of the twins. The Bellos won bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, England’s first medal in the sport.
Having narrowly missed out on reaching the Olympic Games Paris 2024, the brothers are eagerly looking ahead to LA 2028 and the hopes of winning Great Britain’s first Olympic beach volleyball medal.
"Unfortunately this cycle caught us a little bit early," Joaquin explained. "If we'd been able to start full-time a few months earlier I think we would easily have been in because of the level we're playing at now."
"We should be reaching a physical peak in the next Olympic cycle, perhaps even the next one after that as well," said Javier. "What we're working on now is just consistency and being able to get those top results more often.”