‘The Sams’ finish 5th at Under 21 World Beach Volleyball Championships
-Sam Odea and Sam Wallace-Boyd have finished fifth at the 2009 Junior (under 21) World Championships in Blackpool England. The result equals New Zealand best performance at a World Championships, a the result achieved by Sam Wallace-Boyd and Mark Petersen at the Under 19 Championships in 2007.
Sam Odea and Sam Wallace-Boyd have finished fifth at the 2009 Junior (under 21) World Championships in Blackpool England. The result equals New Zealand best performance at a World Championships, a the result achieved by Sam Wallace-Boyd and Mark Petersen at the Under 19 Championships in 2007.
Sam Odea and Sam Wallace-Boyd finished a disappointing 9th at the Under 19 World Championship in 2008. The 2009 international season began strongly for the pairing started strongly by winning gold at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in January and continued into the first two days of Pool play at the World Championships where they defeated Russia and USA.
There was a feeling of déjà vu for “The Sams” at the start of day 3 as the team drew Spain in the round of 16, the country that eliminated the team in 2008 at the under 19 championships, however they battled to a 3 set victory over the 13th seeded Spaniards Francisco Tomás and Diego Mahia 21-17, 19-21, 15-12, in 53 minutes. This pitched them against the fourth-seeded Russian’s Sergey Kostyukhin/Alexey Pastukhov who they defeated in pool play on Thursday. After a strong start the European Under 23 Silver medalists demonstrated their experience coming from behind in three sets to overcome the 16th-seeded New Zealanders, 19-21, 21-18 and 15-9 in 50 minutes.
The youngsters are motivated to return in 2010 and go further, they have one more year of eligibility at the under 21 age group.
Earlier in the week Edwin O’Dea and Sam Tuivai were eliminated 2-0, 21-19, 21-16, by a team that has proven to be one of the standout teams of the tournament, Malte Stiel and Armin Dollinger of Germany. Stiel and Dollinger have advanced through to the semi finals.
These results caps off an outstanding year for VNZ with three top 10 placings at World Championships. Jason Lochhead and Kirk Pitman’s 9th finished in Norway at the senior championships in July and Ryan Grubb and Yohann Timmer also finished 9th at the under 19 World Championships in Turkey.
