Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sorum add world title to their CV as Duda and Ana Patricia claim women's gold
Favourites shine as exciting world Championships come to an end.
Beach Volleyball
Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sorum have won the only title they didn't have, after clinching gold at the Beach Volleyball World Championships in Rome on Sunday (June 19).
The pair became the first men to back-up an Olympic beach volleyball gold medal with a world title the following year.
The Tokyo 2020 champions beat Brazilians Renato and Vitor Felipe 21-15, 21-16 in the final, completing their collection of major titles, having won the Olympics, World and European championships and the World Tour Finals.
“We’re living a dream right now. We’ve been dreaming about winning the world championship since we were little kids watching Stavanger (in 2009) for the first time,” said Mol to the FIVB.
“Our partnership is still kind of recent. But now we have some titles under our belts and it’s still really hard to realise for us what it is that we’re living, because this is just a dream.”
It's also clear they have no intention of stopping their winning ways, "We want to win as many of this as possible," Mol said.
The men's podium was rounded out with a second Brazilian medal as Andre Loyola and George Wanderley claimed bronze with a 15-21, 21-17, 15-11 victory of over Theo Brunner and Chaim Schalk of the USA.
Redemption for Brazilian women
In the women’s final, Brazil's Duda and Ana Patricia claimed victory over Sophie Bukovec and Brandie Wilkerson (Canada) 21-17, 21-19 at the Foro Italico.
The win was Tokyo 2020 redemption for the Brazilians who were favourites at the Olympics, but failed to make the podium.
"I’m just so happy with the result of our work," Duda said.
The Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympics champions have now had eight consecutive victories.
"We keep looking back and talking about some moments we experienced together in the past and even though we’re a in a different moment in our lives now, we continue to have a lot of fun on the court. We love playing together," the Brazilian explained.
The women's bronze-medal match ended under unfortunate circumstances, after Swiss Olympic bronze medallist Joana Heidrich dislocated her shoulder. Despite being up 21-16, 10-7 her partner Anouk Verge-Depre had to forfeit the rest of the match against Germany's Svenja Muller and Cinja Tillmann due to the injury.