Successful start for Cyprus and Canada at WUC Beach Volleyball

On Monday, the ninth edition of the FISU World University Beach Volleyball Championship got underway in Munich‘s Olympic Park. 64 men‘s and women‘s teams from 29 different nations opened the tournament at 9 am, including two men‘s and women‘s teams from Germany.

 Germany successfully hosted the World University Beach Volleyball Championship in the Munich Olympic Park in 2018

MUNICH — Sometimes its how you start that sets up a successful run through a high-end tournament and already on the first day of the FISU World University Beach Volleyball Championship several teams here in the Munich Olympic Park have established themselves as serious tournament contenders.

On the women’s side, the team from Cyprus comprised of  Manolina Konstantinou and Zoi Konstantopoulou made it through Day 1 undefeated in their first two matches. Much of their dominance was thanks to their strong block play, as they prevailed both times in three set games over the Polish duo of Marta Duda and Marta Lodej, and in the afternoon over the German team Leonie Körtzinger and Leonie Klinke.

 The Cyprus team took on the German duo of Leonie Körtzinger and Leonie Klinke in their second match of the tournament, and won in three sets

On the first day, Olivier Barthelemy and Romain Di Giantommaso from France established themselves as serious contenders to win the men’s tournament. With a convincing opening win over Colton Cowell and Brett Rosenmeier from the United States the French pairing defeated Simon Mosimann and Raphael Scheidegger from Switzerland to play their way to the top of Group E.

Megan and Nicole McNamara of Canada are identical twins (with their birthday coming up on 1 August) and are a likely contender for the 2018 World University Beach Volleyball title

Also playing the role of likely title contender are identical twins Megan and Nicole McNamara who also competed successfully in their first two matches for team Canada. Their eyes are firmly set on the gold medal, as they explained. “We would love to leave with a gold medal,” said Megan, the one twin with dimples when she smiles.  “We’re setting our goals high and we’ve been training very hard for this.”