Horst and Hörl make it to the podium in second place in Espinho

Austrians Alexander Horst and Julian Hörl had a remarkable run at this week’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Challenge event in Espinho, Portugal, making it to the podium in second place at the Praia da Baía on Sunday.

Partners since 2022, the Europeans won four of their first five matches in Espinho to advance to their first final in a Challenge event, but couldn’t handle Americans Theo Brunner and Trevor Crabb, who won the gold medal match in two sets (21-16, 21-17), and had to settle for silver.

The result, however, is the best obtained by the two in a Challenge event of the Beach Pro Tour, ranking higher than the third-place finish they had in Saquarema, Brazil, in April. Horst, 40, and Hörl, 31, also won a pair of Futures tournaments in Europe in 2022, in Klaipeda, Lithuania, and in their home sand Baden.

Europe had a second team in action in the men’s medal matches on Sunday in Polish Piotr Kantor and Jakub Zdybek, who made it to the semifinals in just their second tournament together. The two fought hard for a spot on the podium, but ended up falling to Brazilians Evandro Gonçalves and Arthur Lanci in the tie-breaker (21-18, 18-21, 13-15) and finished fourth.

The women’s event had no European teams on the podium, which was entirely dominated by Brazil, with Bárbara Seixas/Carol Salgado taking gold, Andressa Cavalcanti/Vitoria Lopes claiming silver and Ágatha Bednarczuk/Rebecca Cavalcanti securing bronze.

Spain’s Daniela Álvarez/Tania Moreno, France’s Lézana Placette/Alexia Richard and Poland’s Jagoda Gruszczynska/Aleksandra Wachowicz were the most successful European teams in Espinho, finishing in fifth place.

The city of Edmonton, in Canada, is the next destination of the Beach Pro Tour as it will host a Challenge tournament next week, from July 20-23.