The justification for the award is based on the fact that the quartet "fundamentally changed international beach volleyball.
Using close scientific methods, players and managers have together created a completely new, much faster way of playing, which constantly puts the opponents in a time crunch".
- It's incredibly warm.
It is a great honor that what we have done is rewarded with such a nice prize, says Rasmus Jonsson, one of the designers behind what is called the "Swedish Jump Set".
He created the revolutionary game idea together with 73-year-old teacher Anders Kristiansson, the man who in the 80s took Swedish men's volleyball to an EC final and subsequently lined up successes in club teams in both Europe and Asia.
Now it is two newly-turned 21-year-olds who are being lifted up.
Åhman/Hellvig have been drilled in their style of play since their early teens and along the way have won six international championships, from the Youth Olympics via EC and WC titles at youth level to this summer's EC gold at senior level.
"Very nice to get the call"
The idea of the game is to be able to decide an attack already on the second touch, alternatively third as is traditional.
A hard-to-defend attack that is path-breaking, but also complicated to learn.
- If it were easy, everyone would have played like that.
If our competitors want to learn that, they need to be worse for a couple of years, says David Åhman, and rejoices together with his partner about the Sports Mirror Award, which has been awarded since 1998.
- Very nice to get that call.
It feels like we've done quite well, he says, and Jonatan Hellvig agrees, who calls it "a great honor, really great fun".
PICTURE BY PICTURE: How the Swedish stars are revolutionizing beach volleyball
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David Åhman and Jonatan Hellvig have been successful with their own technology.
Photo: SVT