At the Spindleruv Mlyn Snow Volleyball tournament in the Czech Republic, on both the men’s and women’s side of the competition Czech duo’s took advantage of their home crowds to win gold.
The competition is just the second stop on the 2017 CEV Snow Volleyball European Tour.
For the women, Marketa Bendikova and Nicole Dostalova won the gold taking down Ludmila Lojkova nad Radka Tuckova 3-0, (11-, 11-9, 11-6). Taking the bronze medal match was Anna Dostalova and Michaela Knoblochova over Natalie Kolderova and Andrea Rybova in a 2-1 (7-11, 11-8, 11-5) comeback win.
“We played Snow Volleyball for the first time and we did not expect to come out on top,” said Bendikova. “It was a good experience for us. It is extremely difficult to move on the court, but we had a lot of fun and we hope we will come back.”
On the men’s side of the tournament, David Kufa and Robert Kufa were too strong for the top seeded Michal Matyja and Piotr Janiak, taking down the Polish pair in a 3-1, (9-11, 11-3, 11-8, 11-8) gold medal match up. Just two weeks ago in Iran the Kufa brothers dropped a match to the Polish duo, taking full advantage of the home court they stepped up to prevail in a revenge match.
To take the bronze medal match was Poland’s Piotr Groszek and Grzegorz Rusin 2-1, (9-11, 11-9, 11-8) over Tomas Pala and Jan Chalupa.
Former Czevh indoor and beach volleyball star Martin Lebl, whose playing career is over, but remains involved with the sport administratively said that the ski resort responded positively about hosting the snow volleyball event. Lebl remains optimistic about the growing sport; however, remains realistic in that sports that have a winter element are limited to countries and areas that are equipped to handle the conditions. He does see it as a growing sport that he hopes will attract more people to make it an Olympic sport one day.
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