HAMBURG, Germany – The 2024 Hamburg Elite was home to a pair of seismic events in the world of beach volleyball. The first was the retirement of Pablo Herrera, the Spanish legend who hung it up after a record Olympic Games and nearly 300 tournaments played.
The other was the introduction of Backwards Hat Anders Mol.
I say this both in jest and still with a kernel of truth.
Mol woke up the morning of the final day of the Elite with a tweaked neck. Just slept funny and couldn’t really rotate it properly. Suddenly, one of the most physical players on the Beach Pro Tour was bereft of the tool that had him thrice voted Offensive Player of the Year. Rather than make a display of the pain he was in, Mol simply donned a new persona, slipping his hat backwards and turning to shots, pokes, chops, and a light-hearted version of the killer he had become.
Still killed, too. He and Christian Sorum dropped only a single set en route to a gold medal, one that put them solo as the No. 2 winningest pair of all time, passing Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser.
One year later, Mol is healthy as ever – though who knows what havoc those pillows may wreak this weekend – and he and Sorum are coming off consecutive victories, a fifth European Championship and a tour de force at the Montreal Elite.
There will, of course, be familiar foes to make it a third straight gold.
Elmer Andersson and Jacob Holting-Nilsson after another final in Montreal/Volleyball World photo
Young Sweden seeks fourth consecutive final
It was once fair to wonder if Young Sweden’s Jacob Holting-Nilsson and Elmer Andersson simply caught a heater during the Gstaad Elite. They popped off the reserve list, made a spontaneous decision to fly from the Stare Jablonki Challenge to Switzerland, qualified, and ran straight to the finals. The argument for it was easy enough: They were 20- and 19-year-old kids who had nothing to lose, and the highest-seeded team they beat was No. 8 Evandro and Arthur of Brazil.
That argument – or any other – no longer holds weight.
A month after Gstaad, Holting-Nilsson and Andersson won gold at the Baden Challenge, lopping off the second-seeded Bello Brothers and Paris Olympics silver medalists Clemens Wickler and Nils Ehlers in the finals. Two weeks after that, they stunned their de facto big brothers, David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig, in the semifinals of Montreal to make it a third straight final, and another Elite silver after falling to Anders Mol and Christian Sorum for gold.
Three straight finals is something only Mol and Sorum, Ahman and Hellvig, and now Holting-Nilsson and Andersson have done in the Beach Pro Tour era.
Will Hamburg be a fourth?
Wait…why are all the Americans gone?
That headline must be read in a Jack Sparrow voice. If it was not, please go back up and read it again.
OK.
There is a distinct void of USA Volleyball teams on the entry list to the Hamburg Elite. Zero men’s teams, and four middle-of-the-pack women’s pairs: the new duo of Kylie DeBerg and Xolani Hodel, Hailey Harward and Molly Phillips, Brook Bauer and Maddie Anderson, and Kelly Kool and Tiffany Svenssohn.
Where is everyone else?
In Chicago for the AVP League Finals, or, in the case of Savvy Simo and Abby Van Winkle, celebrating some bachelorette nuptials.
For the women, this makes it another gigantic opportunity for a podium without having to navigate the likes of Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher, Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw, or Lexy Denaburg and Julia Donlin. For the men, well, it isn’t much of a factor: The U.S.A. has been on the podium of an Elite just once in the last calendar year.
Sandra Ittlinger in Gstaad/Volleyball World photo
Sandra Ittlinger, Anna-Lena Grune can solidify World Champs positioning
Sitting perfectly, and precariously, on the bubble of World Champs qualifying is Germany’s Sandra Ittlinger and Anna-Lena Grune. Beginning the season on a late start after an injury in the leadup to the Mexico Challenge and Elite, Ittlinger and Grune didn’t even play a point until the Ostrava Elite in June. They’ve done well on little time, picking up three top-10s in Stare Jablonki, Gstaad, and Montreal, and added another ninth at the European Championships. Seeded eleventh in the main draw, another top-10 at home in Hamburg would provide some nice breathing room with just two more events – Elites in Joao Pessoa and Rio de Janeiro – on the World Champs qualifying schedule.
Similar scenarios can be found with Poland’s Malgorzata Ciezkowska and Urszula Lunio (No. 27 in World Champs standings), Brazil’s Hegeile and Vitoria (No. 29), Czech Republic’s Marketa Svozilova and Marie-Sara Stochlova (23), Finland’s Taru Lahti and Niina Ahtiainen (22), and the Netherlands’ Emi van Driel and Wies Bekhuis (21), among others.
