RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — On Wednesday morning, Joaquin Bello had roughly 800 pounds, a medical degree he cannot yet use, and enough points to scratch into Elite16 qualifiers on the Beach Pro Tour but not anywhere near enough to be straight into the main draw.
He was, in other words, 24 years old.
Come Sunday evening, however?
The 6-foot-1 blocker was flush with it. Those 800 pounds? Multiplied to 15,800. Those points he didn’t have? How about adding 1,200 to the ledger? The medals that had eluded not just him and his twin brother, Javi, but the entire country of England?
Why not start with a most improbable of gold at the Rio Elite16?
There have been magical runs this season on the Beach Pro Tour. There have been upsets. But never has there been such a charmed run as that of the Bello brothers in Rio this week. After squeaking through the qualifier, surviving a three-set scare against Americans Chaim Schalk and James Shaw, Rio seemed every bit as likely to be a repeat of Joao Pessoa two weeks before: A so close you can taste it — but not close enough to take a bite.
In Joao Pessoa, they challenged Anders Mol and Christian Sorum, going the full three sets in pool play. Then they did the same to Brazil’s Evandro Goncalves and Arthur Mariano. Those two narrow losses seemed to take the air out of their proverbial sails, as they fell once more, this time in two to Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov and Eduard Reznik.
In their first main draw match in Rio, against Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan, again they came so close they could taste it — until Qatar pulled the bait and set the hook.
Twice, the Bellos were up late in the set.
Twice they squandered the lead.
“Those are the ones you have to win,” Javi said at breakfast one morning, referencing the matches in Joao Pessoa, though it is an equally apt descriptor for their loss against Qatar.
But then the strangest thing happened: They jumped on Steven Van de Velde and Matthew Immers — and actually sustained it. They covered. They scrapped. They blocked. They frustrated the Dutch into a rash of errors. Suddenly, finally, they had landed a signature win, a 21-16, 21-17 upset over the sixth-seeded Olympians.
Stranger still: They did it again, pounding Arthur and Pedro Sousa in the wind and rain, 21-11, 21-16, under the lights. With Qatar getting flattened by the Netherlands on center court, the Bellos were not only into the playoffs but straight into the quarterfinals by virtue of winning pool and earning a first-round bye. A career-high finish was guaranteed.
Could they push it further?
Indeed they could. A revenge win over Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov and Eduard Reznik assured it would be so: The Bello Brothers were now one win away from an Elite16 medal.
Up next? The greatest team of this generation.
Oh.
Javi Bello celebrates at the Rio Elite16/Volleyball World photo
David vs. Goliath is a common metaphor in sports, a cliched underdog narrative that is leaned on more often than it should be. But it was, in this case, fitting. Here was a band of brothers standing just 6-foot-1, hailing from a country with precisely zero beach volleyball history, up against one of the most dominant teams in the history of the sport.
How big is that slingshot, David?
Not big enough in the first set, that much was certain. Mol and Sorum made light work of the Bellos, going up 20-15, and that’s where it would have finished had Mol not called a touch on himself that was missed by the up-ref.
They are respectful goliaths, Norway.
But they are goliaths still.
It would have been easy to write them off then, the Bellos. Norway sweeping England is what’s supposed to happen, after all. Yet Joaquin Bello evidently had other plans. Because soon he was doing to Mol what Mol has done to others for the past six years. High lines? Swatted. Low lines? Roofed. Angle swings? Soft touched and turned and set. Baby lines? Pirouette digs to Javi who would then set Joaquin who, blind by the 360 maneuver he just pulled off, simply jumped as high as he could and took a hack.
It worked. All of it. The whole damn thing.
Seven times would Joaquin block Mol and Sorum in that second set, which finished in a 21-18 victory for the Bellos.
For the second time in as many matches with Norway, the plucky Bellos were taking goliath to three.
The Brazilian crowd, a knowledgeable one who understands the game and the stakes and magnitude of what was happening, began to recognize that something special was brewing on Copacabana. Knew this was a rare scene as Joaquin picked up another block…and another…and yet another. Knew few could cover and scrap and claw like these Bellos were, frustrating Mol beyond belief. He’d end with seven blocks, yes, but how many could he have had? Ten? Twelve? Fifteen?
We’ll never know, because the Bellos didn’t let it be known.
“That’s the way we have to play,” Joaquin said after. “We’re tiny, you know?”
Tiny by beach volleyball standards, but they played huge, heroic even, as they toppled the mighty Vikings, 15-12 in the third. Javi cried. Joaquin didn’t even rib him for it.
“He’s the best defender in the world,” Joaquin would say after. “Now I’m glad the world gets to see it, too.”
They’re brothers to the core. They fight like brothers and love like them, too. Their highs are high and their lows are low.
And this, well, this was the highest of the highs.
Until what came next.
David hitting against Goliath/Volleyball World photo
Someone make sense of it. Please.
Can you?
We can’t.
Someone make sense of a tournament that included Sweden, Norway and Qatar, yet boasted a final devoid of all three, featuring, instead, a pair of brothers from unheralded countries — Joaquin and Javi Bello of England, and Nico and Tomas Capogrosso of Argentina — who had never so much as won an Elite16 medal, much less made a final.
Argentina hasn’t put out a formidable team since Mariano Baracetti and Martin Conde won their last event 22 years ago.
Tomas was five.
England hasn’t boasted a formidable team since, well, let’s check with the Bello’s father for that factoid.
“NEVER” he wrote back in all caps.
So it would be history we’d be witnessing on Sunday night in Rio.
History indeed.
Two weeks ago, Anders Mol and Christian Sorum played arguably the finest gold medal match of the season against Qatar’s Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan. It was widely accepted that it was the match of the year.
It stood for two weeks.
Argentina vs. England, of all matchups, topped it, and there is no question about it.
You never know what you’ll get, when there are four players in territory they’ve never before stood. Never know how a pair of 24-year-old twins, a 22-year-old in his sophomore season (Tomas) and a 29-year-old Olympian (Nico) will find their way on the gold medal stage, on a beach thick with beach volleyball history.
The answer was immediately clear: They elevated.
Tomas played arguably the best match of his career, while Nico, smooth and calm as a summer sea, was unflappable. Meanwhile, the Bellos played their same brand of scrappy, gritty, hustling beach volleyball that frustrated all before them in Rio. Yet try as they might — and try they did — they could not stop the Capogrossos. A 24-22 first-set win led them to a match point at 21-20. Javi, having been blocked by Nico on the play before, moved around for a back set. Nico was ready, shuffling along, planting his right hand in the angle, blocking a second straight for the match…until Joaquin, somehow, someway, covered another.
The most important cover of his career saved the match, and his succeeding put-away tied it back at 21-21.
Breathe.
Regroup.
Survive.
They did all of the above, until finally the Capogrossos cracked, allowing the Bellos to steal an electric second set, 30-28.
To three, once more, they went.
Tomas still can’t fully comprehend, or express, what happened in that gold medal match. He begins a sentence. Stops. Starts. Halts again.
“I thought I played really well, and then, ah,” he said, letting the sentence trail off, evaporating into the air.
If there is a single summation of what it was like to play the Bello brothers in Rio, it is that.
There are few nits to be picked by the Capogrosso brothers in that gold medal final. There was something charmed about the run of the Bellos in Rio de Janeiro. Both Tomas and Nico played at or beyond the perimeters of their abilities. The Bellos simply went supernova, closing a high-octane third set, 15-12, securing their first gold medal as a team, the first gold medal for England, an historic evening for a pair of brothers who had it long coming.
“I don’t think we are any better than we were in Joao Pessoa,” Joaquin said afterwards, “and I don’t think we were any worse in Joao Pessoa than we are today. I mean that.”
He’s 24, yet wise beyond his words. Sports are a fickle mistress, tempting your ego to inflate after wins, hauling you into the abyss after ugly losses. Javi and Joaquin are the same today as they were yesterday: the cover kings, the scrappy gnats who simply won’t go away, rising stars on this Beach Pro Tour.
But they do, at the very least, have a gold medal, and a few more pounds to their name.
The Bellos celebrate/Volleyball World photo
