They didn’t win, but Emily Day and Betsi Flint took home an FIVB silver medal for the second time this season when they lost in the to the home team on Sunday in the four-star event in Edmonton, Alberta.
Fellow Americans Billy Allen and Stafford Slick won the men’s bronze medal.
And not just any home team, but top-seeded Canadians Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes, who were not only playing before home-country fans, but coming off their recent win at the FIVB World Beach Championships.
Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes won 21-11, 21-16, while Akiko Hasegawa and Azusa Futami of Japan beat Australians Nicole Laird and Becchara Palmer in the bronze-medal match 21-19, 21-17.
Second-seeded Flint and Day also won silver earlier this FIVB season in Sydney. Not only did they win $8,000 and 540 points, it was a nice change for them after their last three outings when they lost FIVB country-quota matches in Ostrava, Warsaw, and Gstaad.
Pavan and Humana-Paredes, who clinched a Tokyo 2020 Olympic spot with their Worlds win, didn’t lose a set in Edmonton.
Hasegawa’s and Futami’s bronze is their best result of the year, giving them momentum going into the four-star Tokyo test event next weekend. Before Edmonton, their best result was a fifth place in the two-star in Qidong, China.
Allen and Slick beat Alex Ranghieri and Marco Caminati of Italy (21-13, 21-16). Allen and Slick have served notice that they will contend for the 2020 Olympics after their ninth place in the World Championships (800 points) and their bronze in Edmonton (480 points).
Marco Krattiger and Nico Beeler won the first gold for Switzerland since June 2006 (when Patrick Heuscher and Stefan Kobel won in Roseto degli Abruzzi, Italy). They defeated Canadians Grant O’Gorman and Ben Saxton 21-15, 23-25, 15-8.
At the FIVB four-star Sunday in Espinho, Portugal, it was largely a Brazilian party as Alison Cerutti and Alvaro Filho of Brazil defeated compatriots Andre Loyola and George Wanderley (21-13, 15-21, 15-9).
The gold medal is Cerutti and Filho’s second for the year, following the three-star win in Kuala Lumpur.
Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs of Latvia completed the medal stand with a 21-13, 21-18 win over Marco and Esteban Grimalt of Chile. Plavins and Tocs had fourth ninths and one fifth previously this season.
