A thousand years ago, the sight of viking ships on the horizon struck coastal villages across Europe with terror. A shout of ‘The Vikings are here’ meant doom for anyone nearby. Today a new brand of Vikings is terrorizing the beach volleyball world tour, raiding gold from tournaments around the globe. When top international partnerships spot them on their side of the draw, an equal sense of terror and inevitable defeat washes over the bravest of teams. Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum have been nearly unbeatable over the last two years. Fittingly, they are known as the Beachvolley Vikings.

Unconquered!

The Vikings of the past were never conquered. They simply stopped raiding and settled down to become Swedes, Danes and, of course, Norwegians. If waiting for the Beachvolley Vikings to settle down and retire is the only solution for the beach volleyball world, their domination may last a very long time. These two are still just 22 and 24 years old. With guys playing well into their 40s, these two may be pillaging the FIVB’s gold in the year 2040.

Anders Mol with his flipping celebration in Gstaad 2019. He and Christian have been nearly unstoppable over the past two seasons. Photo by FIVB.

How dominant are they?

Consider these results. Since they won their first tournament at the Gstaad five-star in July 2018, they have entered 18 FIVB or CEV tournaments together. In those 18 tournaments they have won 13 tournaments and been on the podium 16 times. Their worst finishes were two fifth places at four-star events very early last season. There are many teams in the hunt for an Olympic place who would die for an additional fifth place finish or two to add to their Olympic ranking points. For Anders and Christian they look at those fifths and discard them like bad memories. They are over 4,000 points clear of the Olympic rankings cutoff.

Why are they so good?

The most obvious reason for their success is Anders Mol’s blocking. He brings a truly innovative style to his job. He crouches low and out of sight hitters before exploding over the net and stuffing hits, swatting shots or guiding attacks right into the waiting arms of Christian Sorum. Anders is incredibly quick and explosive and two meters tall (6’ 7”). How many guys his size can easily pull off a back flip in deep sand after playing at max intensity in a World Tour final? He does it nearly every week.

The second obvious reason is their transition game is off the charts in efficiency. When Christain makes a dig, it is usually right on target for Anders to make a perfect set or for him to attack on two. When the dig sends them out of system, Mol always seems to find a way to give Christian a hittable ball and keep constant pressure on their opponents. Teams typically opt to serve at Christian, but he runs through tournaments with near perfect side-out efficiency. Of course serving Anders with his accurate passing and incredible athleticism in attack is an even worse option.

Christian Sorum receives a serve on route to a routine side out at the Gstaad five-star. He has been a side out machine during the Beachvolley Vikings unbelievable run. Photo by FIVB.

Those are the obvious reasons, but the most surprising and important reason for their dominance is that they are unflappable. They are the young and supposedly inexperienced team, yet time and time again they find a way to stay composed in tense situations when the more experienced teams wilt under their constant pressure. They always know they can grab a point (or four) when they need it through blocking and transition. It is phenomenal how frequently they turn a 17-17 score into a 21-17 victory or even a 17 – 19 deficit into 23 – 21 win against the world’s best.

Who has beaten them?

In their last 108 matches they have won 102 times, for a 95% match winning percentage. So who are the teams that have managed to take a match off these guys?

#1 Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen in pool play at the 2018 World Tour Finals in Hamburg. The Dutch Bash Brothers took them down in three sets (21-17, 23-25, 13-15), but no worries, the Vikings bounced back to win the tournament and $150,000 a few days later.

#2 Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov crushed them in the quarterfinals at the indoor tournament in The Hague in January 2020. The 12-21, 13-21 loss was by far the worst they suffered all year. This resulted in one of the two tournaments that they didn’t win any hardware. Krasilnikov and Stoyanovskiy went on to win that tournament. More on them later.

#3 Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira got the better of the Norwegians in Xiamen, China last April. The experienced Spaniards knocked out the Vikings in the quarterfinals 21-18, 18-21, 15-17.

#4 Evandro Goncalves and Bruno Oscar Schmidt beat them in the Warsaw final last June 21-11, 17-21, 12-15. Evandro’s serve was on and there was very little that even the Beachvolley Vikings can do when Evandro is ripping from the service line.

#5 In the Hamburg semifinal Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler rode a wave of hometown support to a 21-17, 16-21, 12-15 victory. For the young German’s that was the biggest win of their careers. These two teams may be staging epic three-set battles well into the next decade. Anders and Christian recovered from that loss and won the World Championship Bronze medal the next day.

#6 Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy are the only team to beat Mol and Sorum twice. The World Tour Finals semifinal went the way of the Russians again 21-18, 18-21, 9-15. This time they targeted Mol with their big serves in the third set and it worked. Stoyanovskiy showed Mol what it feels like to get blocked repeatedly and Krasilnikov covered so much sand with his diving defense. Mol actually finished the match with two consecutive hitting errors. Again, they bounced back to win bronze.

Stoyanovskiy challenges Mol at the net in the Rome semifinals. The Russian’s are the only team that have beaten the Norwegians twice. Photo by FIVB.

What about other matches?

It isn’t fair to focus on their losses. Let’s see how Anders and Christian have done against the teams above overall.

Team Match Record Set Record vs Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen 4-1 7-3 vs Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov 2-2 5-5 vs Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira 3-1 7-2 vs Evandro Goncalves and Bruno Oscar Schmidt 3-1 7-3 vs Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler 3-1 7-4

Obviously, Krasilnikov and Stoyanovskiy have been their biggest challenge. Not only have they been equal in matches and sets, but when the Beachvolley Vikings have been eliminated from the biggest events, Oleg and Viacheslav went on to win. That is exactly what happened at the World Championships and the World Tour Finals. If anyone keeps Mol and Sorum away from Olympic gold, it looks like it will be these guys. But I wouldn’t count on it.

European Young Guns to change Olympic landscape

In addition to Mol (22) and Sorum (24) being so young, Stoyanovskiy is only 23 years old. Julius Thole is 22 and Clemens Wickler is 24. Even if all three of these teams don’t end up on the podium in Tokyo, there is a pretty good chance that they’ll all have multiple Olympic medals before their careers come to a close. In the first six Olympics with beach volleyball, America and Brazil have won five gold medals and 10 of the 18 medals overall. That dominance in men’s Olympic Beach Volleyball is going to be under serious threat by these Europeans for a while.