After all the strange losses and inconsistency, the six finishes outside of the top 10, the drop into Challenge qualifiers, George Wanderley and Saymon Barbosa proved they still have the most important ability in sports: They win when it matters.
It has never mattered more these past three weeks. Staring down almost certain elimination from the World Championship race, George and Saymon became the team they knew they could be when they partnered up at the beginning of this 2025 Beach Pro Tour season, capping a stretch of back-to-back-to-back successful tournaments with an emphatic exclamation point: Their first gold medal as a team at the Veracruz Challenge with a 21-16, 21-17 sweep over Chase Budinger and Miles Evans in the finals.
They didn’t just win in Veracruz. They dominated. Unquestionably. Uninterrupted.
No team captured a set. Nobody really came all that close.
Only Chaim Schalk and James Shaw managed to get to 19 points in a set. They were the only ones who were all that competitive. Their six matches in Mexico were a tour de force, winning by a total of 71 points, an average of 21-15 per set.
In a span of three weeks, then, George and Saymon, using a pair of ninth-place finishes in Joao Pessoa and Rio de Janeiro as well as the gold, leapt from unranked to No. 17, so safely in the World Championship field it’s comical it was ever in question in the first place.
It was their defense, above all, that led the way. George and Saymon sided out well, yes, averaging 68% as a team for the tournament. But they held the opposition to just 51%, and only 28% in transition. Meanwhile, their 40 errors were 23 less than their opponents, and Saymon’s 33 blocks nearly tripled that of the opposing blockers.
There wasn’t a single statistical category in which they didn’t blow out their opposition.
That hasn’t been the case for much of the season.
While Saymon’s blocking has been tremendous all year, their defense, prior to this recent stretch of success, had allowed a 65% sideout rate and 49% hitting in transition. Errors piled up for George and Saymon but not for their opponents.
Whatever changed in their game, it did so in a hurry – and at just the right time.
Their quarterfinal against Shaw and Schalk was a de facto play-in match into the World Championships. They never let off the gas, and now Shaw and Schalk are the first team out, needing a withdrawal, visa problems, or injury to sneak into the World Championships.
As for George and Saymon?
They took their own fate in their hands and held on tight.
This gold is Saymon’s first in nearly a decade, his last victory coming at the Fort Lauderdale Major in 2017 alongside Alvaro Filho.
Switzerland’s Julian Friedli and Yves Haussener both began and finished this qualification period with medals in Mexico and needed them both. They started with an unexpected silver at the Yucatan Challenge and, after mid-season struggles, closed well with a bronze in Veracruz. That close? As clutch as it gets, for it punched their ticket to World Champs via European Continental bids. As far as Haussener understands it, the European bids will go to the top three European teams after the top-24. That would make it Haussener and Friedli, Austria’s Philipp Waller and Chris Dressler, and Ruben Penninga and Matthew Immers.
Katja Stam serves/Volleyball World photo
Katja Stam, Raisa Schoon Reunite With Gold Medal in Veracruz
It has been strange to see Raisa Schoon without Katja Stam blocking for her for much of this year, defending instead behind Mila Konink as Stam recovered from an injury. Good as Konink was in relief, all felt right in the world again this weekend at the Veracruz Challenge, when Schoon and Stam reunited after Stam’s return from injury, winning gold out of the qualifier. Their only set lost, in fact, came in the qualifier, dropping the second to Avery Poppinga and Kamila Tan of USA Volleyball.
After that, much like George and Saymon, it was one blowout after the next, winning six straight matches in straight sets, including the final, 21-16, 21-14 over the surging Corinne Quiggle and Chloe Loreen, who took the one seed and looked the part.
It is the third tournament back for Schoon and Stam, who fell in the qualifier in Joao Pessoa, forfeited out of Rio de Janeiro after qualifying – then turning it on in stunning fashion, looking very much like the two-time Olympians they are. It is their first gold medal since winning the Doha Elite in 2023.
The silver is Quiggle and Loreen’s first medal of the season, and it comes after consecutive 13th-place finishes in Joao Pessoa and Rio de Janeiro.
Finishing third was Puerto Rico’s Maria Gonzalez and Allanis Navas, who also emerged from the qualifier in their first Beach Pro Tour event of the season. They have, however, cleaned up on the NORCECA circuit, following up on their NCAA Championship at TCU to win six gold medals and a bronze. Their NORCECA success has earned them a berth into the World Championships this fall.
