Olympic qualification missed

Bitter defeat for Hörl/Horst in China

Austria's beach volleyball players Julian Hörl/Alexander Horst narrowly missed out on reaching the quarter-finals at the Pro Tour Challenge tournament in Xiamen on Saturday and, for the time being, on qualifying for the Olympic Games in Paris.

The duo missed four match points in the round of 16 against direct Olympic rivals Estebean and Marco Grimal from Chile at 21:19, 20:16 and still lost 21:23, 11:15. However, the siblings Dorina and Ronja Klinger had reason to celebrate with fifth place in China.

"It was certainly the third worst defeat of my career after losing the World Championship final in Vienna in 2017 and missing out on the Olympics in London 2012, where we were one point short of advancing, but one point would have been enough for us to qualify for the Olympics today. That hurts a lot," said an annoyed Horst. Hörl also spoke of a "battle of nerves in the direct Olympic duel". The duo will now fly on to Brazil, where they hope to secure their Paris ticket at the Elite 16 tournament in Brasilia.

Klingers in fifth place
The Klinger sisters leave with better feelings. After beating Hailey Harward/Kylie Kuyava-De Berg from the USA 2:1 in the round of 16 (19,-16,12), the Klingers had to concede 18:21, 18:21 to Spain's Daniela Alvaraz/Tania Moreno in the semi-finals. This meant fifth place in the final standings.