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CANCUN, Mexico, April 24, 2021 - Juan Virgen and
Lombardo Ontiveros have been the face of Mexican
beach volleyball on the FIVB Beach Volleyball
World Tour for the last decade. They were the
first men’s team in their nation to step on a
podium, have also secured a gold medal at the
2015 Pan-American Games in Toronto and
represented Mexico at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
As the two approach the end of their careers
with Ontiveros turning 38 at the end of the year
and Virgen recently celebrating his 34th
birthday, another team has started challenging
them for the position of top Mexican team on
tour.
They might only have played in six World tour
events so far, but 24-year-old Jose Rubio and
23-year-old Josue Gaxiola have already made
strides with a silver medal won at last year’s
4-star event in Doha, Qatar. They also won a
pair of NORCECA tournaments in 2018 and 2019.
The pair, who won the silver medal at the 2016
FIVB U21 World Championship, entered the three
tournaments at the Cancun Hub as the
highest-ranked Mexicans and secured the
country’s only victory in the event so far. It
was a meaningful one as they upset Brazilians
Bruno Schmidt, a Rio 2016 Olympic champion, and
Evandro Goncalves, a 2017 world champion, to
knock them out of the tournament.
However, being considered the country’s top team
above the veterans Ontiveros and Virgen is not a
big deal for them.
“I honestly don’t care who’s number one or
number two,” said Gaxiola. “For me, considering
for how long Lombardo and Juan have been
representing Mexico, I think they deserve to be
number one no matter what. But at the end of the
day, the four of us are Mexico and our goal is
always to represent Mexico as well as we can.”
The respect they have for their compatriots
comes not only from watching them represent
their country in a great way around the world
for so long, but also from the close
relationship they have developed from training
together in Mazatlan.
The country’s top three teams practise together
with head Salvador Gonzalez and the hope is that
they push each other to to be better.
“Practising with them has made a great
difference for us,” Gaxiola added. “We haven’t
played a lot internationally, so to be able to
get that high level of competition every day
from them and Sarabia and Stephens in training
is great. Playing against the international
teams is always a challenge.”
Gaxiola has enjoyed some recent success with
Rubio in international tournaments
The Mexicans will be more united than ever in
two months when their country will stage the
final round of the NORCECA Continental Cup in
Colima. As the tournament’s system has two teams
per gender representing each country, it will be
up to Gaxiola/Rubio and Virgen/Ontiveros to try
to qualify Mexico for the Olympics for a
second-straight time.
“This will be a very important tournament for us
as it’s Mexico’s opportunity to have a team at
the Olympics,” the defender commented. “I
believe now we have two teams that are in a
position to compete with any other in our region
and we hope everything goes well. Cuba and
Canada should come with strong teams and we
respect them, but will do our best to get the
Olympic berth.” |
