Beach volleyball world champions Schweiner and Perušič among Czechia’s biggest Olympic hopefuls
Beach volleyball world champions David Schweiner and Ondřej Perušič will be among the first Czechs to compete at the imminent Olympic Games in Paris. Three years after their Covid-related disappointment in Tokyo, the Czechs are hoping to bring back gold this time.
David Schweiner and Ondřej Perušič are due to play their much-anticipated debut in the beach volleyball competition on Sunday, July 28, two days after the Olympics begin in Paris. The venue will be an outdoor arena at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
The reigning world champions are among the biggest Czech hopefuls for a medal at the Games.
At the last Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, a positive Covid test for Perušič shortly after his arrival in Japan prevented the pair from playing their first group match and destroyed their chances of qualifying for the rest of the tournament.
The president of the Czech Olympic Committee, Jiří Kejval, hopes that this time around they will be able to make up for that disappointment.
“The Tokyo Games were a sporting tragedy for David Schweiner and Ondřej Perušič, as they were unable to train and were only able to compete at the last minute. We told ourselves that they should try their luck again at the next Games. In the meantime, they have been crowned world champions and I would be very happy for them if they could write another page in their history.”
Schweiner and Perušič qualified for Paris at the World Championships in Mexico last October. The Czechs created a sensation in the quarter-finals by defeating title-holders Norway. They subsequently beat the Swedish pair David Åhman and Jonatan Hellvig in three sets in the final, becoming the first Czech beach volleyball world champions in history.
The two players have been together since 2016, making them one of the longest-serving pairings on the world circuit, with their Italian coach Andrea Tomatis, always at their side. According to David Schweiner, staying together for such a long time is relatively rare in their sport:
“In beach volleyball, pairs change quite often, especially in bigger countries where there are more players and therefore more opportunities to form teams of different quality. In Czechia, even though the situation has changed with the arrival of many young players in recent years, it hasn’t been so easy because the choice of players was more limited. Although we are good friends, the fact that Ondřej and I have stayed together for so many years is something quite special.”
At 30 and 29 respectively, Schweiner and Perušič, are set to experience one of the last highlights of their shared careers in Paris. If they reach the podium, it will be already a second Olympic medal for the Perušič family. Ondřej’s grandfather Boris won the Olympic silver with the Czechoslovak volleyball team at the Tokyo Games in 1964.
