They’ve been travelling all over the world and they’ve been doing so winning and winning and winning. It’s easy to forget that Anders Mol and Christian Sørum are human beings sometimes.
While they may seem like a winning machine, it would be foolish to think that they are immune to burning out.
Yet in their first match on the Red Bull Beach Arena of 2019 in Vienna, the Vikings made light work of home young guns Martin Ermacora and Moritz Pristauz, winning 21-18, 21-10, to get their defense of their title off to a winning start.
But having touched down in the Austrian capital on Monday just a day after winning gold in Tokyo, Anders and Christian were happy to shed light on what has been a hectic schedule for the world’s number one team.
“For sure I can feel that the body is getting tired, we have a lot of matches and we’ve been doing really well,” said Anders. “We have to be focused for every match and it’s hard to be that mentally focused in every game.
“But now we’re in Vienna – it’s such a big tournament, it’s such an honor to play here – we want to do our best. Of course our brains are on when we play.
“We arrived on Monday and had our first training session on Tuesday, but we didn’t do too much. We need to take it easy and relax a bit. That’s just as important because you can’t just play and train, play and train all the time. It’s not possible and not healthy.”
Defender Christian added: “In the hotel room you can feel super tired. You’re like s---, the body and mind is tired but when you enter the stadium, it’s game time and your energy is ready.”
The victory ensured the World Championship bronze medalists will be in the elimination phase, as will the World Champions themselves, Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov after the Russians beat qualifiers Steven van der Velde and Christiaan Varenhorst in the first match of the day.
Elsewhere on the first day of men’s pool play, 2016 Olympic champions Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt both won their matches. Alison and Alvaro Filho saw off Americans Reid Priddy and Theo Brunner while Bruno and Evandro Gonçalves edged out Swiss pair Marco Krattiger and Nico Beeler in three sets.
