Beach duo bask in glow of world title

Working off the celebratory gelato, pineapple pizza and beer was no problem for Canada’s newest world champs.

Navigating their way from here to the Tokyo Olympics in the next 12 months will be a larger, far more complicated challenge. But beach volleyball stars Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes — who won Canada’s first world title in the discipline last weekend in Hamburg — relish the thought, because this was the dream, then the goal, now a grand reality.

“Being the reigning world champs now is obviously going to put a target on our backs. We’re expecting that,” said the 32-year-old Pavan. “But you know what, winning worlds was our goal for this season, and earning a berth to Tokyo, and we’re not going to let anybody take that away from us.

“The competition is stiff out here. At any given moment there are so many teams that can win a tournament.

“Yeah, they may play their best volleyball against us, but we want to play against teams playing at their best, because that’s going to make us better too.”

There are obvious and immediate benefits to their victory over the American team of Alexandra Klineman and April Ross at the worlds. Like an automatic berth in the Tokyo Olympics. Like a US$60,000 paycheque to split. Like the 1,600 rankings points that vaulted them into first place on the World Tour list.

They have discovered there is also a very human side to their unparalleled success.

“It’s been kind of nice here,” Humana-Paredes said from Gstaad, Switzerland, where they were competing in another World Tour event, just four days after winning their title.

“We go out for dinner and people ask us for autographs and pictures. That’s been surreal, to kind of feel like superstars for a little bit.”

Their win was seen on screens worldwide and was a particularly big deal in Europe.

“There were so many people in the crowd, like 13,000 people were in the stadium watching,” said Pavan. “There were thousands of people denied entry because it was sold out. There were people watching all over Europe and the world. After we won, it was clear that everybody had been paying attention. It was really cool.”

They hope it’s more than a blip on the radar, that there are long-term benefits for the growth of the game in Canada, where they rarely play.

As luck would have it, they will be in Edmonton for a World Tour stop later this month, and their win is surely a dream come true for local organizers trying to sell tickets.

“What we would love more than anything is just to see the stands packed,” said Humana-Paredes. “We want to see Canadian flags in the stands. We want to feel the energy and the pride of having a world title in Canada. To say that Canada is the best in beach volleyball, we want to see that Canada is proud of that.”

Their extraordinary achievement has been exceeded only by an Olympic medal, a bronze won in Atlanta in 1996 by the men’s team of Mark Heese and John Child. Pavan was nine, watching it happen from her home in Kitchener, Ont.

“That was incredibly exciting for me as a little kid. I was definitely old enough to know what was happening. It was really cool. I grew up in an indoor (volleyball) family so it was something a little bit different than I was used to, but I was always interested.

“It’s always been a dream to win on the biggest stage for me as well.”

Humana-Paredes was just three in 1996, but her father Hernan Humana coached Heese and Child, and the family grew up in and around the game.

“Watching the Olympics, and beach volleyball especially, when I was young was just a given. It was normal to see my dad there. I think that’s obviously why my dream started and when my dream started. I do remember watching and I felt like I was a part of it, a little bit.”

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