In the quarter-finals of the European Beach Volleyball Championships, Nils Ehlers appeared alongside Clemens Wickler against the Norwegians Andres Mol and Christian Sørum as if he were amazed at what was happening beyond the net.
The 2.10 meter tall German blocker could do whatever he wanted, his opponent, who was ten centimeters smaller on the other side, almost always had a better answer ready.
Achim Dreis
sports editor.
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The result was correspondingly clear: 15:21 and 14:21 after two rather one-sided sets.
"A swatter," Wickler summed up the lesson given by the Olympic champions, world champions and four-time European champions from Norway.
"The score lies," said Christian Sørum in the style of a sporty gentleman - the two Germans played much better than the result indicated.
Clap or honorable defeat, with the match point on Saturday afternoon, the last of the nine German teams that started the tournament was eliminated - and the most hopeful one at that, after all, Ehlers/Wickler were third in the elite tournament on the World Tour in a week ago Hamburg occupied.
In the northern metropolis, Karla Borger and Julia Sude also finished third on Sunday - and they too failed in the quarter-finals in the heart of southern Germany.
The Latvians Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravčenoka were too strong for Borger/Sude on Friday.
21:18, 21:18 the European champions of 2019 won against the EM thirds of the previous year.
10:0 sets in five matches speak for the Latvians before the final on this Saturday evening (8:15 p.m.), but their opponents also smashed their way through the tournament without fault or blame.
The defending champions Nina Brunner and Tanja Hüberli from Switzerland also didn't have to give up a set, winning hands down (21:19, 21:9) in the preliminary round against the interim duo Kira Walkenhorst/Louisa Lippmann and just as easily (21:12, 21 :15) in the quarterfinals against Chantal Laboureur/Sarah Schulz.
After 24 medals for German women's teams since 1994, two fifth places represent a rather sobering result. The German champion Chantal Laboureur consoled herself after the match with the great atmosphere on Munich's Königsplatz: the atmosphere was "awesome".
And her partner also enthused despite the defeat: "All hell is going on here".
That is very motivating, said Sarah Schulz, especially when you compare it to other tournaments "somewhere in the middle of nowhere".
"Everywhere should be like this"
Even the serene Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sørum, who have been successfully touring around the world in beach volleyball for years, have won all European championship titles since 2018, as well as the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021 and just a few weeks ago the World Cup in Rome, were enthusiastic about the Munich team Audience: “You understand beach volleyball.
It should be like this everywhere."
And so the former boom sport, which has recently started to falter, can book this European Championship in Germany as a great success - even if the performance of the local protagonists did not live up to expectations.
Nils Ehlers concluded by saying that he hadn't let himself be impressed by the stars on the other side, but was "completely himself" - only unfortunately it didn't work out what he had planned.