Itapema, Brazil, May 19, 2019 – Because of their stellar 2018-2019 season, when they won FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Major events in Gstaad, Vienna and Hamburg and the European Championships, it is easy to forget something important about Anders Mol and Christian Sorum: they are both yet to play at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships.
That is about to change within the next few weeks as the young Norwegians are guaranteed a spot in the 2019 edition of the tournament, which will take place in Hamburg, from June 28-July 7.
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The tournament, however, has been on their minds for quite some time now. More precisely, since 2009, when the Norwegian city of Stavanger hosted the event and a 13-year-old Sørum and a 11-year-old Mol witnessed all the action with very open eyes.
“The first time I watched really cool beach volleyball was in Stavanger,” Sorum recalled. “It made me want to play at the World Championships since I was very young. Last time unfortunately we didn’t have enough points, but now we made it, so it’s going to be really cool to be there and compete. We saw all those legends of the sport back there in Stavanger and now it’s our turn to play.”
The venue will make the event even more special for the Norwegians as they will return to the Rothenbaum stadium, the stage of what has arguably been their most significant victory so far, the gold medal at last year’s World Tour Finals.
“We’re really excited,” Mol added. “We love playing in Hamburg and we have the best memories from last year. We know that the Rothenbaum is going to be really, really loud, there will be a lot of people and a lot of Norwegians coming, so we’ll try to get in our rhythm until there so we can perform the best we can.”
Despite of their young ages, Mol and Sorum need to be included in any list of contenders for the medals at the German coastal city, especially after their outstanding last season. Their strategy to remain at the top, however, is to keep approaching each tournament as just another one.
“We try to take it as just another tournament,” Mol explained. “We don’t want to put any extra pressure, we just want to play good volleyball and that’s all we think about. Of course we know that the Olympic spot matters and of course we want to win the gold medal, which would be amazing, but we just want to get out there and play our best and see how far we can go.”