In recent days, Jakub Szałankiewicz (Stakolo Staszów) with Michał Kądzioła as well as Piotr Kantor (both MKS Dąbrowa Górnicza) with Bartosz Łosiak (Jastrzębski Węgiel) have lately been seen in the beach volleyball international arena. The first couple, at the beginning of June, took fourth place at the European Championships, whereas the second couple, on Sunday won the CEV Satellite tournament in Umag.
All four players from Friday to Sunday will play in Alanya at the Continental Cup final. The country which will take the first place of the tournament will gain promotion to the Olympic games tournament for one pair. Teams ranked 2nd -4th will have a chance to fight for the Olympic qualification at the Intercontinental tournament in Moscow (28th of June – 1st of July).
- Therefore, the first match in Alanya is going to be so important. Victory in the quarterfinal gives promotion to the top four – says coach of players Kantor and Łosiak, Sławomir Robert. Polish pairs will start fight for performances in London with the match against Russia. If they manage to win, their semifinal rival is going to be the winner of the match Netherlands vs. Sweden. The remaining pair: Norway vs. Spain and Turkey vs. Australia.
Polish pair won the semifinal tournament of the Continental Cup in France in a very beautiful way what results in qualification to Alanya. - Szałankiewicz with Kądzioła had a strong support from pair Kantor-Łosiak. Kantor and Łosiak are 20 years old and any other polish pair manager to win the CEV Satellite tournament being so young – says coach Robert.
Bartosz Łosiak says ‘we keep on moving forward’. – We travel to Alanya to fight for the first place. We are not interested in any other place on the podium. We start to win among the seniors. One of the examples was in Umag. At the CEV Satellite we had one worse match, but everything finished in a positive way – said Bartosz Łosiak.
Earlier, the right to participate in the Olympic games, based on the world ranking, achieved Grzegorz Fijałek (Delic-Pol Norwid Częstochowa) and Mariusz Prudel (TS Volley Rybnik). At the men’s tournament we will see the polish players. – We watched the last matches of the polish national team during the World League. We are encouraged by their successes, especially the one over Brazil. It is great- said Kądzioła, who last year managed to with the gold medal at the Universiade together with Szałankiewicz.
