National beach champions crowned in New Zealand
2024.02.23
In Mount Maunganui, Zeimann and Polley, Fuller and Nicklin win national crowns, while in Ukraine, Vitalii Savvin, Anton Moiseiev, Inna Makhno, and Sofiia Rylova win gold.
While New Zealand’s 2024 national beach volleyball tour ended with the Finals in Mount Maunganui crowning the Pacific country’s champions last week, Ukraine held this year’s first stop on their national beach volleyball tour in Kyiv.
The 2024 GJ Gardner Homes NZ Beach Tour sponsored by Tip Top hosted its Finals in Mount Maunganui this past weekend, following three visits earlier in the year. Top-seeded Alice Zeimann and Shaunna Polley (shown in the main photo; credits: phototek.co.nz) lost their first set of the whole tour this year, but they still swept through the competition unbroken to win their fourth gold and the women’s national champions title. They defeated Alaina Chacon and Mariah Whalen of the USA 2-0 (21-18, 21-19) in Sunday’s championship match. This same pair had forced them into a tiebreaker earlier in the competition. Another American duo, Peri Green and Victoria Corcoran, won the bronze following their 2-0 (21-18, 21-14) thumping of Meile Rose in the third-place match.
After two podium finishes on the Tour this year, Jeff McManaway and Thomas Reid eventually topped the rankings. In their semifinal match, the American team of 44-year-old veteran Phil Dalhausser and 32-year-old Taylor Crabb—who had won gold at the previous round in Christchurch—were defeated 2-1 (15-21, 21-18, 15-11) and the pair took home the gold. In addition to Crabb, another well-known American athlete, Dalhausser is a four-time Olympian, a 2008 Olympic champion from Beijing, a 2007 world champion, the 2010 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour season champion, and a 38-time gold medallist at FIVB competitions. To take first place on the podium, McManaway and Reid defeated Jake MacNeil and Alexander William Russell of Canada 2-0 (22-20, 21-19) in the championship match.first-placed In the third-place match, Bradley Fuller and Alani Nicklin stunned Dalhausser and Crabb once again by winning 2-0 (22-20, 21-12). With the bronze, they earned their fourth medal in as many tour appearances.
The SUNRISE indoor beach sports complex in Kyiv hosted the first stop of the Ukrainian national tour in 2024. In Sunday’s final of the men’s tournament, Vitalii Savvin and Anton Moiseiev produced a 2-0 (21-17, 21-16) win over Volodymyr Kushch and Volodymyr Kelbas. Oleksii Bublyk and Yaroslav Tymchenko took the bronze after a forfeit win of the third-place game.
The women’s gold went to Inna Makhno and Sofiia Rylova after a 2-0 (21-13, 21-13) sweep of the final match against Maryna Hladun and Tetiana Lazarenko. By the very same score, Valentyna Davidova and Olga Mykhailovska defeated Yeva Serdiuk and Daria Romaniuk in the bronze medal game.
@charith
