Brazil’s Talita Antunes and Taiana Lima defeated Canada’s Sarah Pavan (Kitchener, ON) and Melissa Humana-Paredes (Toronto, ON) 2-1 (19-21, 24-22, 15-10) for the gold medal at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 4-star event in Cancun, Mexico.
A World Tour regular since 2005 and three-time Olympian, Talita of Brazil has appeared in 178 international events in her career and has won gold medals in 13 different seasons with four partners.
The Canadian team, who are World Champions and already qualified for the Olympics, have won a second silver in two consecutive tournaments. They were also second last month in Doha.
Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk and Eduarda “Duda” Lisboa won the bronze over Germany’s Chantal Laboureur and Cinja Tillman 2-0 (37-35, 21-16) earlier today in Cancun. Canada’s Heather Bansley and Brandie Wilkerson were fifth.
Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum won the men’s tournament over Qatar’s Cherif Samba and Ahmed Tijan.
This was the first of three events in the “Cancun Hub” – the second event will follow from April 22 to 26 and the third from April 28 to May 2. Match replays can be found on Beach Volleyball World’s Youtube channel.