Metro News National Sports

Canadian women take home silver at under-21s

The Canadian Press

Published: September 04, 2011 5:37 p.m.

HALIFAX – Top-seeds Victoria Altomare and Melissa Humana-Paredes of Toronto settled for a silver medal on Sunday at the FIVB world under-21 beach volleyball championships.

The duo lost to Switerland’s Nina Betschart and Joana Heidrich 21-16, 14-21 and 15-11 in a 48-minute finale.

The Netherland’s Rimke Braakman and Sophie van Gestel captured the bronze medal by beating Poland’s Renata Bekier and Daria Paszek, 21-18, 25-23 in 41 minutes.

It was Canada’s first women’s final four appearance and the first women’s medal in the 11-year history of the event.

“We were very nervous and in the second set we just could not stop making mistakes, but then we caught fire again in the tiebreaker, served better and were able to pull out the victory,” said Heidrich.

“The Canadians played very hard and we feel fortunate to have been able to beat a much more experienced team on their home sand.”

After Canada played a near flawless second set, Switzerland regained control as Betschart came up with six kills for points and Heidrich serving up two aces and three blocks for points.

On the men’s side, Brazil’s Carvalhaes and Felipe came from behind and then held off a late charge to defeat Toronto’s Dany Demyanenko and Garrett May, 21-23, 21-14 and 15-13 in the bronze-medal match.

Ukraine’s Sergiy Popov and Valeriy Samoday defeated Poland’s Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak for the gold.