Beach volleyball championship begins at Heumarkt – wien.ORF.at

Because the Plexiglas partitions have been removed from the spectator area, there are an additional 400 tickets per day. Organizer Hannes Jagerhofer was happy to be able to hold the tournament “in the middle of the city, at a unique location” despite the corona worries. A beach volleyball arena was specially set up on the Heumarkt. A total of 6,600 square meters were redesigned for this purpose. Around 2,500 fans have space to cheer on in the stands.

Ticket sales take place online

“Preliminary round games and pool games take place on the Danube Island and everyone who manages to stay in the competition has the privilege of being able to play here at the Heumarkt,” said tournament director Reinhard Lischka.

Ticket sales take place online, as does pre-registration for contact tracing. On site, visitors have to go to the “3-G” control next door in the concert hall and can then continue to the main entrance. In this way, the organizers want to prevent queues from occurring without any gap.

For the first time night sessions with floodlights

Together with around 60 employees, construction manager Niki Eiselt has been working on the 15-meter-high temporary stadium for weeks. “The biggest challenge was coordinating the whole thing, because there is only one driveway and all the sand and all the trucks that come in there can only go in through one driveway”. Around 600 tons of sand came from Melk by truck. “It has a very small amount of lime inside so that it doesn’t stick together when it rains, so that it stays nice and fluffy,” says Eiselt.

The night sessions with floodlights are new this year. Beach volleyball shows are possible until 10 p.m. “These are the first night sessions that we have in Austria and that’s something special. We have often done night sessions abroad and that is a completely different atmosphere, ”said Jagerhofer. City Councilor for Sports Peter Hacker (SPÖ) is looking forward to an “awesome” event that, thanks to a strict protection concept, could take place despite the “extreme Corona conditions”.

Doppler / Horst give farewell performance

With the European Championship in Vienna, the Austrian beach volleyball aces will have the chance to put themselves in the limelight in front of the home crowd immediately after they missed the Olympic Games. The red-white-red teams are outsiders, the focus is particularly on the last appearance by Clemens Doppler / Alexander Horst.

The European Championship third from 2014 ended their successful cooperation after the home tournament and ten years together. “We’re going to try to play a cool tournament and enjoy it all and not think too much about the afterwards. Now we’re just looking forward to finally being able to play in front of a full house again, ”emphasized the 38-year-old Horst. Like Doppler, he has not yet decided whether he will continue with another partner in 2022.

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