Andre Loyola, Brazil – (On being the youngest World Champion at 22): “I didn’t know about that so I’m really happy and emotional about that but there’s no way I can talk about this game and this tournament without talking about what Evandro did, especially in the first set when he got those aces. I look at him now and I see a superhero. He made the difference not only in this game but in the entire tournament.”
Evandro Goncalves, Brazil – “I’ve been training really hard with my serving, something I’ve done for awhile. It’s nothing new for me, the last two years I’ve been serving well on the World Tour. At the end of the first set it was good to have some serves that changed the game a little bit but this is not all about me. My coaching staff, may partner Andre, they all helped me get better so it’s not just my serves, it’s my serves and my staff. The last tournament we played before the World Championships was Poland and we did really bad. Being the more experienced of the two of us I knew that when he got here, it’s a new tournament, a new story so we were really strong mentally for this tournament. All we wanted was to play well every match and we actually went further than we expected to, so when we got to the finals it was just something that every athlete wants. I have this strong feeling of giving this gift to Andre and help making him the youngest World Champion, this is amazing.”
Clemens Doppler, Austria – “First of all I’m really proud we got so far in this tournament because our preparation for this World Championships was hard and long. It’s nice to see again that hard work is paying off. Of course we weren’t expecting the final here but we knew our level of Beach Volleyball could be as good as a team playing in the finals. Most of the days were really good. It was easy to see were enjoying playing in front of this crazy audience. They were the third man behind us and they pushed us to the limit. We had so many close games which we won but I think it was because of the spectators. In the end it was an incredible journey for us and especially for Hannes (Jagerhofer). His team did an amazing job. It was for sure it was the best Beach Volleyball event I’ve seen in my life. Like Alex said, they deserved it more today because Evandro was risking everything at the end. The bad thing for us was it worked. He had four really good serves when we were leading by (20-16). If you risk and the risk pays off, you deserve it more.”
More Doppler – (On admitting a block touch instead of forcing Brazil to challenge): “If there won’t be the challenge I don’t know if I would (laugh). The challenge system is really good and we had the same thing like this at the last World Championships and it’s a really important thing in certain kinds of games like a World Championships final. I think it’s very obvious to everybody that I touched it and I wasn’t thinking that I would hide it.”
Alex Horst, Austria – “Of course it’s been like a fairy tale because there has been no Austrian team winning a medal at the World Championships. We reached the final at home with this amazing, crazy crowd. I think it’s the best tournament in Beach Volleyball in history. Of course we’re a little bit disappointed we didn’t win but they deserved to today a little bit more and for us it’s the biggest success we’ve had in our career.”
More Horst – “We will remember this first set for a long time because we had four set points in a World Championship final, which is only possible every two years. We didn’t lose gold, we won silver. It will take a little more time but I think we can be proud of our team and everybody who worked with us to win this medal.”