The Olympic silver medalists maintained their great form from London and won their first two matches. However in round three, not everything worked out for the Americans as they had to take a bitter 1-2 (19-21, 21-17, 11-15) loss against their compatriots Lauren Fendrick and Nicole Branagh.
After making their way through the losers’ bracket, including a thrilling 2-1 (19-21, 21-18, 15-13) win against Greeks Vasiliki Arvaniti and Maria Tsiartsiani, the US teams met again in the semifinal. Once again, Fendrick and Hansen took the first set, but this time Jen and April turned the match around to win 2-1 (15-21, 21-11, 15-8) and advance to the final.
Against the strong Russians Evgenia Ukolova and Ekaterina Khomyakova, the US girls were always in control. After the 2-0 (21-17, 21-19) win, Jennifer and April finally could celebrate their first gold of the season to have a perfect ending for this summer.
„Winning silver at the Olympics was great, but we really wanted this medal“, Jen said after the match. „We were desperate to win here. We won gold in every year we played together, but this year we left it till the very end.“
Now all the FIVB Beach Heroes have a well deserved break to recover for the next summer. To know how they prepare themselves, stay tuned on FIVBheroes.com!
