Hosts Austria win inaugural FIVB Snow Volleyball World Tour event in Wagrain-Kleinarl

With both teams being cheered on enthusiastically by the home crowd throughout the match, Austria 1, or Florian Schnetzer, Alexander Huber, Martin Streitfellner and Christoph Dressler, triumphed to take the trophy after a 2-0 (15-11, 15-10) win over their compatriots Felix Friedl, Arwin Kopschar and Maximilian Trummer in the Final.

While Schnetzer has multiple snow volleyball medals to his name, for his teammates this was the first podium finish in the new winter discipline. Huber, Streitfellner and Schnetzer have fifth place finishes from the inaugural CEV Snow Volleyball European Championship, held last year in Wagrain-Kleinarl and Flachau, but for all of them this was the first international appearance at a three-a-side snow volleyball tournament.

In both sets of the final, the more experienced Austrian team dominated, but to the delight of the hundreds of spectators the game was still very competitive. A great hammer by Dressler put an end to the first set at 15-11. At match point, Schnetzer gave the opponents’ reception a hard time from the serving line and scored an ace to close the second set at 15-10.

In the Austria 2 squad, only Kopschar had some previous international experience on the snow. A couple of weeks ago Huber and Dressler won the Austrian national championship together with Friedl and Simon Fruehbauer.

After receiving the trophy from the hands of Austrian Volleyball Federation President Gernot Leitner on the court immediately after the last whistle. Huber said, “We are feeling great!

We have been on the sand for most of the year and now we switched to the snow for the last couple of weeks. It’s so much fun

The atmosphere is great. We are so proud that this event is in Austria and it feels great that we also won the title.”

Schnetzer added, “I have played snow volleyball since eight years ago and it’s amazing how it’s been developing.

The organizers and the federations do an amazing job. So many nations come to play snow volleyball and I think it will have a great future”.

The bronze medal was an all-Russian affair and went to the team of Russia 1 made up of Pavel Rakusov, Yury Bogatov, Nikita Kuzmin and Petr Bakhnar. They produced a useful showing to win 2-0 (15-10, 15-10) over Russia 3.

For this team, this is already their fourth international medal this season as they also won CEV European Tour gold at Bakuriani and bronze at Moscow and Erciyes. Bogatov and Rakusov are no strangers to success having multiple two-a-side European Tour medals to their names from previous seasons.

The game between Austria 2 and Russia 3 was the more interesting of the two semi-finals on Sunday morning. The home team lost the first set, but emerged victorious from the hard-fought second and third sets to claim a 2-1 (10-15, 15-13, 15-13) win. In the match-up between the first teams of the two countries, Austria 1 dominated to manage a 2-0 (15-11, 15-11) victory.

In the women’s competition the Russia 1 quartet of Olga Motrich, Anna Romashova, Olga Filina and Polina Lapteva triumphed with the first ever gold medals from an FIVB Snow Volleyball World Tour event.

They did so in impressive fashion by beating USA 2-0 in the Final, closing out a competition performance which saw them lose only one set in their five main draw matches.

The first set of the gold medal match delivered a nail-biting epilogue for the packed stands at the centre court in Wagrain-Kleinarl. The Russians had a 14-7 lead, but missed out on the seven consecutive opportunities to close the set. The Americans produced an incredible comeback to level the score and even failed to convert a couple of set points of their own, before Russia 1 finally closed the set at 19-17. In the second set, the European side were well in control and cruised to a 15-8 win.

For the USA team of Karissa Cook, Emily Hartong, Katherine Spieler and Alexandra Wheeler, this was the second Snow Volleyball tournament having already claimed European Tour gold at their snow debut in Moscow back in December

In their semi-final clashes in the morning, Russia 1 lost the first set to Argentina, but then mounted a comeback to claim a 2-1 (13-15, 15-9, 15-6) victory.

USA overcame a late comeback from opponents Czech Republic 2 in the second set of their semi-final but were otherwise well in control of the tie, the Americans defeating their European opponents 2-0 (15-7, 15-9).

The event in Wagrain-Kleinarl was co-organised with the Confédération Européenne de Volleyball (CEV), with next event taking place this weekend (4 to 7 April) at lan de Corones / Kronplatz, Italy.