Two medals in Jurmala: beach volleyball players from Russia successfully performed at the European Championship

Vyacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy became European vice-champions in beach volleyball, adding to their collection of awards.

A year ago, for the first time in Russian history, they won the World Championship, which even the legendary Igor Kolodinsky and Dmitry Barsuk failed to do.

Together with gold, the duet of Krasilnikov and Stoyanovsky then won a ticket to the Tokyo Olympics, which was later postponed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The situation with COVID-19 also affected the calendar for the second half of 2020.

Many competitions were canceled, and Krasilnikov and Stoyanovsky, like their rivals, experienced problems with competitive practice, playing only in domestic competitions, and not always successfully.

The European Championship in Jurmala was the first international start for them in six months.

Krasilnikov and Stoyanovsky were seeded at number two.

The first went to the Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Serum.

It cannot be said that the group stage was completely cloudless for the Russians.

They started with a fairly convincing victory over the representatives of Latvia Ardis Bedritis and Arnis Relins, but in the next match they gave one set to the Poles Petr Kantor and Bartosz Losyak.

In the 1/8 finals Krasilnikov and Stoyanovskiy managed to break the resistance of Austrians Alexander Huber and Christoph Dressler, who had the lowest, 32nd seed at the European Championship, but created a mini-sensation at the previous stage.

In the quarterfinals, the second ranked duo took the Norwegians Hendrik Nikolai Maul and Mathias Berntsen out of their way.

This fight became the fastest in the men's grid.

It lasted only 27 minutes and ended with a crushing score - 21:14, 21: 9.

This result ensured the Russians a meeting with compatriots Nikita Lyamin and Taras Myskiv (11th seed).

It is curious that before Krasilnikov was a pair with Lyamin: in this combination, they even took the bronze of the 2017 World Cup.

However, they preferred to move on by different roads.

Considering that the opponents were well aware of each other's capabilities, the meeting could turn out to be especially stubborn.

However, this pair of Krasilnikov and Stoyanovskiy passed quite easily - 2-0 (21:17, 21:16).

As a result, Lyamin and Myskiv went into a consolatory battle for bronze and did not succeed in the battle with Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo.

The Russians won the first game (21:17), but in a bitter struggle gave up the second (21:23) and then surrendered in a tie-break (12:15).

In the final, Krasilnikov and Stoyanovsky got Mol and Serum.

The formidable Norwegians skated through the tournament without giving up a single set to their competitors.

The Russians had enough strength to impose resistance on them only in the first game.

Krasilnikov and Stoyanovskiy were leading by four points at the very beginning, then 19:18 towards the end.

And in the second set, the encouraging 4: 2 very quickly turned into 4: 7.

Mol and Serum felt the courage and were already playing for their own pleasure, while the Russians, as they say, let go of the ending.

As a result - 21:19, 21:15 in favor of the Norwegian athletes, who brought the score of personal meetings to 3: 2 in their favor.

The winners of the recent Russian Cup in Anapa, Semyonov and Leshukov, had to withdraw from the European Championship almost before the start.

The COVID-19 test passed by Semyonov in Jurmala gave a positive result.

Nevertheless, the rest of the Russians were not removed from the tournament.

As the VFV reported on its official website, the athlete felt good and "was held hostage to the situation."

Ruslan Bykanov and Alexander Likholetov took the quota of the retired duo.

In the first round of the playoffs, they lost to the French Kinsey Ay and Arnaud Gauthier-Rat in two sets.

In the women's part of the competition, the strongest Russian pair Nadezhda Mokroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina achieved serious success.

In Jurmala, the Russians got the fourth seed.

At the group stage, Makroguzova and Holomina quite easily dealt with duets from Poland and the Netherlands, without giving up a single set to their rivals.

In the 1/8 finals, their victims were the French women Alexandra Jupiter and Aline Chamero, and in the quarterfinals - the Italians Marta Menegatti and Victoria Orsi Toth, who knocked out the Russians Maria Bocharova and Maria Voronina in the first round of the playoffs.

Both Makroguzova and Kholomina won both games in two games.

In general, they performed in Jurmala in their own strength, although they were defeated in the semifinals by the Germans Kim Behrens and Tsinje Tillmann, who were seeded only tenth.

If in the first set the fight went on until the last rallies (in the end, 19:21), then in the second set it was already a little easier for the opponents - 17:21.

And yet, the Russian athletes managed to finish the tournament on a positive note.

The match against Czech women Barbora Hermannova and Marketa Slukova-Naush turned out to be super-resistant.

Suffice it to say that in the first game the volleyball players staged a real shootout, luck in which smiled at Makroguzova and Holomonoy - 25:23.

Then their advantage turned out to be more significant - 21:18.

Thus, the Russian national team took away two awards from Latvia.

Ekaterina Birlova and Evgenia Ukolova (15th seed) and Ksenia Dabizha with Daria Rudykh (21st) were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.