Hamburg, Germany, August 22, 2017 – The last two weeks have been long, but extremely pleasant for Evandro Goncalves and Andre Loyola. Recently crowned world champions at the FIVB 2017 Beach Volleyball World Championships in Vienna, the Brazilians made the most of their time as they prepared for the $800,000 Swatch Beach Volleyball FIVB World Tour Finals presented by Vodafone in Hamburg.
“We actually had only one day off before we started training for the World Tour Finals,” Evandro said. “It was good being with our families and friends and enjoying our title a little bit, but the World Championships are in the past now, we need to keep thinking forward and our next goal is the World Tour Finals.”
Evandro and Andre had to squeeze their training sessions between multiple meetings with family and friends. They were also honoured during a friendly match between the volleyball teams of Brazil and the United States and hosted in a ceremony at Rio de Janeiro’s City Hall.
“To be honest, we just realized how big our win was when we got back to Brazil,” Andre, the youngest world champion ever at the age of 22, commented. “It was awesome having 10,000 people and the national indoor team players cheering for us. We also saw how happy our families and our friends were and had to do a lot of press stuff.”
At the Rothenbaum Stadium, the Brazilians can take one more step towards their ultimate goal, which is qualifying for the 2020 Olympic Games and playing for the gold medal in the Japanese capital in three years time.
“We would be lying if we said that we don’t think about Tokyo, but we also have some short-term goals for our team and right now we’re focusing on them,” Evandro added. “First it was the World Championships and now it is the World Tour Finals. The important thing is that we keep doing things the same way and that we keep our routine. We’re pretty confident we can achieve our goals by doing this.”
The second-seeded team in Hamburg, Evandro and Andre will begin in Pool B, where they will face Russia’s seventh-seeded Nikita Liamin and Viacheslav Krasilnikov and 10th-seeded Casey Patterson and Theo Brunner of the United States, against who they debut this Wednesday.