Kish Island, Iran, February 22, 2018 – Young French duo Maxime Thiercy and Arnaud Gauthier-Rat have their eyes set on gaining experience from playing against good teams in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour to help them in their Paris 2024 Olympic Games campaign.
“We are a new team so we want to have more experience,” Thiercy said. “When you play against the big teams, that’s when you really gain good experience.
“It would be nice to beat them and we hope we can. For now, we want to win some medals, but our final goal is to be in the Olympics.”
They made a great comeback in Round 1, as they rallied from a set down to beat USA’s Williams Kolinske/Miles Evans to face top seeds Martins Plavins/Edgars Tocs.
“We are going to play against Plavins/Tocs,” Gauthier-Rat said. “They are really a good team and we have great respect for them. We always see these great teams as a challenge. We are happy to play them, whatever the outcome may be.”
The two players hustled well on the court and showed some brilliant moves that entertained the Kish Island crowd. In terms of inspiration, the two athletes look up to their compatriots Trevor Clevenot and Earvin Ngapeth from the men’s volleyball national team.
“There is one player my age, his name is Trevor Clevenot,” Thiercy said. “We started playing at the same time. He has great attitude on the court, he’s a great player.”
“I really like creative players on the court,” Gauthier-Rat said. “So in volleyball, Ngapeth is very creative. When we saw his jump set in the Italian League, the next day in training we were all trying to do that set. This is the kind of creativity we like to see and apply in our game.”
Thiercy/Gauthier-Rat are in no rush and are taking everything in to improve and reach their Olympic goal.
“We just want to earn some points,” Thiercy said. “The higher we can go in the FIVB ranking, the better. We are just getting as many points as we can and we are just enjoying the game.”
“Our main aim would be to go to the Olympics,” Gauthier-Rat added. “For now, we are enjoying every tournament, every game. We are trying to rise up in the rankings. We are doing it step by step.”
“French beach volleyball is changing a lot right now. Coach Lissandro Carvalho will restructure the beach volleyball programme, with the help of the other coaches in preparation for the Olympics in 2024. We are also trying to make it to Tokyo 2020.”