Chronicle Herald
Canucks go for gold
Women’s beach volleyball team to compete for top prize; men for bronze
By BRIAN FREEMAN Sports Reporter
Sun, Sep 4 – 4:54 AM
Canada’s Victoria Altomare reacts with her partner Melissa Humana-Paredes after scoring a point in their semifinal match against Poland’s Daria Paszek and Renata Bekier at the 2011 FIVB Swatch world junior beach volleyball championships in Halifax on Saturday. (Ted Pritchard / Staff)
On the hottest streak of their lives, Victoria Altomare and Melissa Humana-Paredes weren’t planning to alter their preparations for today’s women’s gold-medal match at the FIVB Swatch world junior beach volleyball championships.
“We’re gonna follow the same routine,” Altomare said after she and her partner outlasted Renata Bekier and Daria Paszek of Poland 21-19, 15-21, 15-12 in a seesaw semifinal Saturday to advance to the final.
“We’re gonna eat together, we’re gonna have a great night’s sleep and we’re gonna prepare for tomorrow. I mean, nothing can change at this point. It’s been working up till now.”
Altomare and Humana-Paredes, the top women’s seeds, meet eighth-ranked Nina Betschart and Joana Heidrich of Switzerland in the final at 2:30 p.m. at the Sands at Salter waterfront stadium in Halifax.
In the men’s gold-medal game at 3:45 p.m., ninth-seeded Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak of Poland go up against No. 20 Sergiy Popov and Valeriy Samoday of Ukraine in a showdown of 6-0 teams.
The Polish men were Canuck killers on Saturday, downing No. 1 seeds Garrett May and Danny Demyanenko of Toronto 21-17, 21-16 in the semifinals after eliminating sixth-ranked Fiodar Kazhamiaka of Waterloo, Ont., and William Sidgwick of Toronto 21-16, 21-12 in the morning quarter-finals.
May and Demyanenko, 4-2, play second-seeded Brazilians Marcus Carvalhaes and Vitor Felipe, also 4-2, in the bronze-medal match at 1:15 p.m. Last year, May and partner Sam Schachter upset Felipe and Alvaro Filho to win the championship in Turkey, giving Canada its first medal in the 10-year history of the under-21 tournament.
Today, Altomare, 20, and Humana-Paredes, 18, will make their own mark as the first Canadians to appear in the women’s final.
Since dropping their first two starts, including one to Bekier and Paszek, the Torontonians have reeled off four consecutive wins, none bigger than their epic semifinal triumph over the Poles.
Altomare and Humana-Paredes trailed 8-5 in the decisive third set before rallying in front of a boisterous crowd of about 2,000 to take the 58-minute match, the longest to date on the women’s side.
“Words can’t describe this feeling right now at all,” Altomare said after the match. “It’s surreal.”
They’ll play for the championship against a Swiss team that was formed just five days prior to the tournament but is 5-1 and knocked off the second-seeded American duo of Tara Roenicke and Rebecca Strehlow in the other semifinal.
Partners for several seasons before parting company in 2010, Altomare and Humana-Paredes were reunited only a month ago themselves. As the host country’s top-seeded women’s team, they were awarded the No. 1 seed for the world tournament but staggered out of the gate.
“I think mentally we were doubting ourselves and then afterwards we were like, OK, there’s no time for this,” said Altomare, who hadn’t advanced beyond the round robin in two previous world championships.
“I mean, you can wallow and you can be upset that you just lost but you have a tournament to play. We just got it together, talked about it and we said, hey, if we’re gonna do this, we don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves.”
While the Canadian women were celebrating their semifinal win, May, 19, and Demyanenko, 17, were trying to shake off their loss to Kantor and Losiak, winners of last year’s under-19 world youth title.
“They’re a great team and they showed it today,” said a disheartened May. “Danny and I were in tough and I thought we battled and we showed our character out there but we struggled at points and I think they took advantage of that.”
The Canadian men, also paired up only about a month ago, advanced to the semifinals with a 21-19, 21-19 quarter-final victory over No. 4 Andrey Bolgov and Ruslan Bykanov of Russia in the morning.
They won their first two tournament starts and topped their pool with a 2-1 record, then came back from a set down to dump Danish brothers Oliver Kaszas and Sebastian Kaszas in a playoff game Friday night.
Still stinging from the semifinal loss, May said he was disappointed he won’t be able to defend his crown but he promised Halifax fasns they’d be ready to play this afternoon.
“I would’ve liked to have been in the gold-medal match but I’m very appreciative of the opportunity to play at such a great venue here in Halifax so Danny and I are gonna refocus and bring everything we have to the bronze tomorrow and give it our best.”
