Beach Volleyball

Both men’s and women’s 4x4 Volleyball teams had impressive straight sets victories on their first day of competition, with the women defeating Gambia 21-11, 21-7 and men knocking off Chile 21-14, 21-17.

Britt Kendall was happy to get the win in tough conditions. “It feels good to see our rhythm as a team coming together,” Kendall said. 

“Even though the scoreline ended up being one sided we felt like we were in a real battle the whole way through.”

After notching their first win on day one of competition, the women’s team of Kendall, Christie Jenkins, Johannah Rohkamper, Alisha Stevens and Stef Weiler face a double header of Vanuatu and Canada on Sunday.

Max Guehrer was impressed with how the team hustled to get the ascendancy over their Chilean opponents.

“Our main goal tonight was to outwork them and the gauge of that was how well we were covering the court,” he said. “If we were blocked or there was a loose ball we were hustling and pushing to keep ourselves alive in every point.”

“We had a really intense training camp just before coming here and it feels like we’re starting to hit our stride. We’re beginning to adjust to the conditions, with deeper sand and the high humidity making the ball move and float differently than in Australia.”

Tim Dickson was also happy to get the first game nerves out of the way.

“Even though it’s only been two days since we arrived, the whole team were really gee’d up to get out there and have a hit,” Dickson said. “It was great conditions to play in and feels really good to have that first win on the board.”

The men’s team of Guehrer, Dickson, Marcus Ferguson, Jonathon Hunt, Mark Nicolaides and Connor O’Neill will take on Poland and Mozambique in tomorrow’s pool play.

Beach Handball

The men’s team kept their finals hopes alive with a dramatic penalty shootout victory over Oman, after going down to World Champions Brazil in today’s earlier game.

Needing a win to keep in the mix for quarter finals, the men lost a tight first set 19-18 but fought back to claim the second 20-14 and force a penalty shootout.

After losing to Oman in penalty shootouts the last two times they had met, the team was under pressure to turn the tables when they needed it most.

Specialist Lucas Turecek was in the thick of the drama throughout the penalty shootout. With Beach Handball shootouts featuring a long in-pass from the attacking side’s keeper to their shooter, an errant throw by Turecek led to a miss early in the shootout, opening the door for Oman. 

The South Australian came back in a huge way, forcing two defensive stops on Omani attackers and scoring the final winning penalty to seal the Australians’ first win of the tournament 7-6 in the shootout.

“Oh that was just amazing, I’m still so emotional right now!” Turecek said following the dramatic win. “I think I had tears in my eyes before the ball hit the back of the net on that winning shot and this is just pure joy.”

“I was so frustrated at myself for that early mistake in the shootout, but the team were incredible. This team is an incredibly tightknit group of guys and they picked me straight back up. It’s so good to share a win like that over a team that has beaten us in shootouts before to keep our finals alive.”

The men’s team face USA tomorrow morning in a do-or-die matchup with the winner progressing through to the finals. 

The women’s team came up just short against China, going down 15-13, 17-14 in the morning’s first match before Spain ran away with their game in the second set 16-11, 22-6. The women will take on Vietnam first up Sunday morning.

Karate

Shaun Yuen and Marianna Sampani had remarkably similar experiences in the Karate kata preliminaries at Katara Beach.

With athletes in pools of eight with the top four advancing to finals, both Yuen and Sampani were right in the mix, sitting in the fourth and final qualifying position with one athlete to compete.

Unfortunately for the Australian contingent, the last athlete scored the highest (women) and second highest (men) scores of the pool to knock the Aussies out of finals contention.

Sampani scored 22.88 just 0.12 behind fourth place in the pool, while Yuen scored 23.08, 0.2 out of the final qualification spot.

With 38 of Australia's 40-strong contingent in action Sunday, make sure to follow the action on the livestream here.