Melissa Humana-Paredes, Brandie Wilkerson win first gold together at Jurmala Challenge

When Candians Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson announced their partnership last fall, it marked a seismic change, if not a somewhat expected one, in the beach volleyball landscape. One of the main benefits for both was as much what they were gaining on their side of the net as it was what they no longer had to deal with on the other side of it.

“Ten less things to worry about now,” Wilkerson said then.

“Are you kidding me?” Humana-Paredes said, exaggerated relief on her face.

Yes, in partnering with Wilkerson, Humana-Paredes added arguably the best blocker in the world to her half of the net. Yes, in partnering with Humana-Paredes, Wilkerson has behind her one of the smoothest and savviest defenders in the game. Equally as important, Humana-Paredes no longer has to navigate that block herself, and Wilkerson doesn’t have to discover new and inventive ways of scoring on Humana-Paredes.

That burden now lies on the rest of the world. The world has yet to figure it out.

Only one team, Kelley Kolinske and Hailey Harward, managed to claim a set off the Canadians in this weekend’s Jurmala Challenge. That came in the first set of the entire tournament. After that? The Canadians won 12 straight sets, allowing only one to come closer than four points. Switzerland’s Esmee Bobner and Zoe Verge-Depre put on a valiant effort in the finals, though even they, with all of the momentum and carefree swagger of the underdog, couldn’t sustain the absurd offensive efficiency required to consistently score on Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson, with the gold medal going to Canada, 21-17, 21-17.

“How lucky am I to play with Brandie? She was an all-star all weekend with all of the monster blocks and all of the spin serves,” Humana-Paredes said. “It’s been such a pleasure.”

For the second consecutive tournament, Wilkerson has finished No. 1 in blocks. In the Ostrava Elite16 two weeks ago, Wilkerson’s 28 blocks led the field en route to a bronze medal, their first podium as a team. In Jurmala, Latvia this week, her 23 blocks again topped the field. This time she was rewarded with gold.

“Every point we played like it’s the first point of the game until the very end,” Wilkerson said. “Our opponents are obviously extremely talented, they’re an amazing team.”

Indeed, the silver won by Verge-Depre and Bobner is a massive one, their first podium as a team in the Beach Pro Tour era. Theirs was a most difficult route, requiring an upset victory over Joana Mader and big sister Anouk Verge-Depre, Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles, Andressa Cavalcanti and Vitoria De Souza, and Taina Silva and Victoria Lopes in the semifinals. The silver earned them a career-high $8,000 in prize money and 760 crucial Olympic rankings points, making the Swiss Olympic race an awfully intriguing one with less than 12 months remaining.

Also gaining some momentum, alas, in the Olympic race is Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova. The 2022 European champions hadn’t been on the podium yet in 2023. They found the optimal time to do so, in front of a supportive home crowd that perhaps gave them the final nudge they needed in a 21-11, 20-22, 15-13 hard-fought bronze medal win over Silva and Lopes.

“It feels amazing,” said Graudina, who won multiple National Championships while at USC. “Brazil had such a good defense. We were hitting and they were digging everything.”

“It’s such a good feeling to have a medal here in Latvia,” Samoilova added. “Amazing.”

Zachery Schubert, Thomas Hodges Cinderella dance from Australia to Latvia

Zachery Schubert and Thomas Hodges are not from Latvia, as Graudina and Samoilova are. They’re from quite a ways away, in fact. Nearly 10,000 miles of distance was covered for Schubert and Hodges to make the trek from Australia to Jurmala for this weekend’s Challenge. Now they’ll have roughly 10,000 miles of flight time to celebrate the most unlikely of gold medals.

Seeded No. 12 in Thursday’s qualifier, Schubert and Hodges ran the table in Latvia, winning both qualifier matches, winning pool, then winning four consecutive three-setters in the playoffs, including a volatile gold medal match over heavy favorites George Wanderley and Andre Loyola of Brazil.

A 21-10 first set that went the way of Brazil seemed to indicate that the magic had run out, the legs were gassed, the fairytale over. And then, at 15-15 in the second, the fairy dust began swirling again, as a side out preceded a Hodges block, then another, staking the Australians to an 18-15 they’d push to a 21-16 second set win. The momentum, somehow, was sustained from there, as Hodges and Schubert won the third, 15-12, claiming their first gold medal as a team.

“If we’re going down, we’re going down swinging,” said Schubert, who, it should be noted, did not go down despite nine blocks from Andre in the final match. “Couldn’t have done it without the crowd.”

Despite the considerable distance from Australia to Latvia, the crowd adopted the underdogs as if they were one of their own, lending them the loudest cheers of the day as they stunned the Brazilians. While silver was not the ideal result for George and Andre, it is yet another medal to a growing trove of them, their sixth in the last two seasons.

Brazil tacked on some more hardware in bronze, too, as Vitor Felipe and Renato Lima won a civil war with Evandro Goncalves and Arthur Mariano, 21-15, 16-21, 15-13.

“We’re very happy. We worked so much for this tournament,” Lima said. “It’s a medal, very important for our team.”

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