Australia and Brazil Take Four Olympic Beach Places
Two continental championships finished on the same Sunday. Stefanie Fejes and Taliqua Clancy won in China, Thamela and Vic won in Brazil, and both men's finals were contested by two pairs from the same country.
Australia and Brazil took four Olympic places out of the sand on Sunday, on two continents, in two championships that finished within hours of each other.
Stefanie Fejes and Taliqua Clancy beat Xu Yan and Xia Xinyi 2-0 (23-21, 21-16) for the Asian title at Shangluo, in China. Thamela Coradello Galil and Victoria Lopes Pereira Tosta beat Michelle Valiente Amarilla and Giuliana Poletti Corrales 2-0 (26-24, 21-7) for the South American title at João Pessoa, in Brazil.
Both men's finals were all-domestic.
Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher beat Thomas Hodges and Ben Hood 2-1 at Shangluo, 21-17, 17-21, 15-12 on the FIVB's set order, which Volleyball World reverses in the first two. André Loyola Stein and Renato Andrew Lima de Carvalho beat Evandro Gonçalves Oliveira Junior and Arthur Diego Mariano Lanci 2-0 (21-16, 23-21) at João Pessoa.
The places belong to the countries and not to the pairs. Agência Brasil reports that the Brazilian confederation will decide which of its pairs takes each of its two, and the FIVB and the AVC both describe the Shangluo places as won for Australia.
Clancy Has Now Won Six Asian Titles
Taliqua Clancy won a silver medal in Tokyo and has now won this championship six times, on the FIVB's count, which is longer than Fejes has been playing alongside her.
The two of them dropped one set in the whole tournament, in the round of sixteen against Vanuatu, and took that match 20-22, 21-9, 15-6.
Asami Shiba and Reika Murakami of Japan beat Shaunna Polley and Olivia MacDonald of New Zealand 2-0 (21-16, 21-13) for the women's bronze. China's men's bronze went to Wu Jiaxin and Zhou Chaowei when Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar withdrew injured, so that match was never played.
Nicolaidis Warned Himself About This Beach in August
Nicolaidis and Carracher had already won at Shangluo this year. That was a Beach Pro Tour Challenge in July, on the same sand, in an entirely different competition, and it is exactly the sort of thing that gets misread as form.
Volleyball Australia published this from Nicolaidis on 18 August, before the continental championship began.
“Whilst winning gold in Shangluo was an incredible moment, we don't want to take any false confidence from it. It was a great opportunity to get some extra experience in the same environment.”
“We experienced a similar event in 2024 and it's a pressure cooker. Every team can win on their day which makes every match just as important.”
He had lost a continental final in 2024 and won this one against another Australian side, nineteen days after telling his own federation to take no confidence from the July title.
Brazil Reached All Four Semi-Finals at Home
Brazil put all four of its pairs into the semi-finals at João Pessoa and came out of the weekend with one gold in each draw.
Paraguay took the women's bronze, Fiorella Nuñez Quintana and Denisse Alvarez beating Verena Figueira de Oliveira and Thainara Mylena Feitosa de Oliveira 2-1 (18-21, 21-15, 15-8).
Marco and Esteban Grimalt of Chile beat Nicolás and Tomás Capogrosso of Argentina for the men's bronze. We are not printing the set scores. The FIVB's report gives the first set as 21-123, which cannot have happened, and no other source reachable from here has published that match.
Both men's finals on Sunday were contested by two pairs from the same country, and both of those countries now hold one men's place between the pairs that reached them. The hardest match either federation plays in this cycle may already be behind a closed door.
