Hannes Jagerhofer has long made a name for himself as a busy entrepreneur in his home country Austria. He is known there as Mister Beach Volleyball and organizes just about anything that could bring even a little attention to his favorite sport. Like the Klagenfurt World Series Tournament with its euphoric audience, like the 2017 World Cup in Vienna on the Praterinsel, which also offered a great spectacle – not least because two Austrians won silver in Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst. For women, Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst won the World Cup gold in the scorching heat, one year after their Olympic victory in Rio.
A long time ago, all of that; Walkenhorst later resigned, is now working on her comeback again, Ludwig had a son and tried a new partner in the sand. With the long-time indoor national player Margareta Kozuch, she did not have the success she had hoped for with fifth place at the summer games in Tokyo.
On Wednesday, a few days after the Olympics, the European championship began in Vienna, with the organizer Jagerhofer, who had an almost crazy pop-up stadium built on the Heumarkt in the heart of the city: 460 tons of steel, 600 tons of sand, Floodlights and a grandstand with a capacity of 2500 spectators with LED cladding. Due to the pandemic, spread over three floors, which “looks like an inflated state opera” with its boxes, Jagerhofer said courier. In Tokyo, the dimensions of the arena were much larger, but less extravagant, and there was no one there to fill the seats.
How things will go on with Ludwig and Kozuch is “completely open”, according to their manager Andreas Scheuerpflug
However, neither Ludwig, the five-time European champion, nor Kozuch are at this EM. “After the climax and the exhausting matches in Tokyo, we first have to recharge the batteries,” said Ludwig and then sent: “I will definitely let you know how things are going with us.” According to her manager Andreas Scheuerpflug, “it’s completely open – it’s about Paris 2024”, the next Olympic cycle, “and a plan for how to approach this project. The decision will not be made in the next few weeks”. The project by Ludwig, 35, and Kozuch, 34, was also set up to Tokyo, it is also quite possible that it will end with the quarter-finals in Japan.
Kim Behrens and her new partner Sandra Ittlinger move up for the tired Olympic participants, in addition to whom the Swiss bronze winners from Tokyo, Anouk Vergé-Dépré and Joana Heidrich, canceled for Vienna. In addition, Chantal Laboreur starts with Cinja Tillmann – the latter won silver at the EM in Latvia alongside Behrens in autumn 2020. In addition to Victoria Bieneck and Isabel Schneider, Karla Borger and Julia Sude, who were eliminated in the group phase at the Olympic Games, complete the German women’s team. Wednesday started promisingly, the quartet won their opening games 2: 0, Borger / Sude and Tillmann / Laboreur made it straight to the last sixteen after one more success each.
Finalists at the 2019 World Cup, in Tokyo a decent fifth: Julius Thole (left) and Clemens Wickler start at the European Championships despite their Olympic efforts.
(Photo: Marijan Murat / dpa)
In the men’s competition on Thursday at the start of the group, the 2019 World Cup runners-up, Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler, measured a decent fifth in Tokyo, compared with Alexander Walkenhorst and Sven Winter within Germany. “So shortly after the Olympic Games, the EM will be a little surprise bag,” said Wickler, who flew with Thole straight from Japan to the mini training camp in Bratislava.
This effort alone shows that they do not intend to fail in the quarter-finals as they did in Japan. Nevertheless, others are favored – the Norwegian Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sörum, for example, who marked out their territory before the start. They came to the performance with gold medals slung around their necks – Hannes Jagerhofer, who promised the great opera in Vienna, was also allowed to touch the precious metal briefly.