Brazilians Evandro & Loyola net world champion title

VIENNA, Austria, August 6, 2017 - For the seventh-time, a men’s team from Brazil climbed atop the podium at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships at Evandro Goncalves and Andre Loyola defeated Clemens Doppler and Alexander Horst of Austria in the gold medal match before more than 10,000 fans on the Donauinsel center court.

Seeded fourth in the 48-team field, Evandro and Loyola posted a 2-0 (23-21, 22-20) win in 57 minutes over the 12th-seeded Doppler and Horst, who were seeking to become the second team to win a world championship on their “home” sand.

With the win, Evandro and Loyola join compatriots Para Ferreira/Guilherme Marquez (Los Angeles 1997), Emanuel Rego/Jose Loiola (Marseille 1999), Emanuel/Ricardo Santos (Rio de Janeiro, 2003), Marcio Araujo/Fabio Magalhaes (Berlin 2005), Alison Cerutti/Emanuel (Rome 2011) and Alison/Bruno Oscar Schmidt (The Hague, 2015).

Evandro and Loyola, who split the US$60,000 first-place prize, won their first gold medal together as the 2017 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships presented by A1 was the Brazilians eighth FIVB World Tour event together.  The 2017 Vienna event was the Austrians’ 50th FIVB event as Doppler and Horst split $45,000 for placing second for the third time on the World Tour silver medal finish. 

In the bronze medal match, sixth-seeded Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Nikita Liamin of Russia posted a 2-0 (21-17, 21-17) win in 42 minutes over 45th-seeded “wild card” entrant Maarten van Garderen and Christiaan Varenhorst of The Netherlands.  The third-place win netted US$35,000 for the Russians while van Garderen and Varenhorst shared $28,000 for the fourth-place finish.