FIVB World Tour Finals
- Rothenbaum Stadium; Hamburg, Germany
- August 15-19, 2018
- Schedule/Results
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- Men’s Field
Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sorum won their fourth straight gold medal and biggest yet, taking the FIVB World Tour Finals title with two wins on Saturday.
“I don’t know what has happened the last month,” 21-year old Mol said. “It’s been unreal. The whole journey has been unreal for us. We did not expect this. Our goal for the season was to take a medal and we did that already in Brazil in Itapema in May. We had to reach for a higher goal and of course that was to take a gold medal.”
The Norwegians hung on for a 21-16, 15-21, 15-9 win over top seeded Germans Julius Thole/Clemens Wickler in the first semifinal of the day and then closed out the tournament with a gold medal win sweep of ninth-seeded Michal Bryl/Grzegorz Fijalek (21-19, 21-17).
ANDERS MOL AND CHRISTIAN SØRUM WIN GOLD 🥇 AT THE #WTFinals! @NRKno #HamburgFinals pic.twitter.com/rduEwEdJ53
— Beach Volleyball (@FIVBBeach) August 18, 2018
The gold medal also wins the pair a $150,000 purse, bringing their winning since July 15 to $253,000, including titles at the Gstaad and Vienna Majors and the CEV European Championships. According to the FIVB, the $253,000 pileup tops the previous record of most money in four straight events set by Karch Kiraly/Kent Steffes at the end of the 1993 and beginning of the 1994 seasons ($245,000).
It’s time for a gold medal backflip by shooting star and #BeachWorldTour leader Anders Mol! 🙌🙌 #WTFinals pic.twitter.com/vh36YmJR2Y
— Beach Volleyball (@FIVBBeach) August 18, 2018
Bryl/Fijalek take home the silver and an $80,000 check. The pair defeated fellow Poles Piotr Kantor/Bartosz Losiak 21-17, 21-15 in the semifinals to earn the matchup with Mol/Sorum. The silver medal is the second of the year for Bryl/Fijalek, who also were runnerup to Mol/Sorum at the Vienna Major.
Kantor/Losiak, the No. 4 overall seed, rounded out the podium with the bronze medal and $50,000, rallying past homestanding Thole/Wickler 19-21, 21-15, 15-13. The Polish side, which finished fourth at the 2017 World Tour Finals, add their fifth medal of the year with the bronze, following gold at the Warsaw Four Star (July 1), silver at the Hague Four Star (Jan. 7) and Ostrava Four Star (June 24) and bronze at the Itapema Four Star (May 20).
Thole/Wickler are far from empty handed in finishing fourth, cashing in for a $35,000 prize. It marked the third top five effort of the season for the Germans, following bronze at the Espinho Four Star (July 8) and a fifth-place finish at the Ostrava Four Star (June 24).
The final standings and prize money from the FIVB World Tour Finals are:
1. Mol/Sorum (Norway) – $150,000
2. Bryl/Fijalek (Poland) – $80,000
3. Kantor/Losiak (Poland) – $50,000
4. Thole/Wickler (Germany) – $35,000
5. Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo (Italy) and Martins Plavins/Edgars Tocs (Latvia) – $20,000
7. Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen (Netherlands) and Oleg Stoyanovskiy/Igor Velichko (Russia) – $15,000
9. Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira (Spain) and Janis Smedins/Aleksandrs Samoilovs
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