Canadian women's beach volleyball teams win silver, bronze in Brazil

Canadian women's beach volleyball teams will leave the Itapema Open event in Brazil with silver and bronze medals.

Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes defeated fellow Canadians Brandie Wilkerson and Heather Bansley in a semifinal match on Saturday before falling to the U.S. team of April Ross and Alix Klineman in the gold-medal match on Sunday.

Wilkerson and Bansley secured the bronze medals with a 21-19, 17-21, 22-20 over the Netherlands' Marleen van Iersel and Joy Stubbe.

Ross and Klineman took a hard-fought, three-set (25-23, 18-21, 15-10) victory over Pavan and Humana-Paredes, who won their eighth international medal together. Pavan and Humana-Paredes have won three gold, four silver and one bronze so far over their partnership.

The bronze medals won by Wilkerson and Bansley gave the world ranking leaders their second consecutive bronze medal in Itapema. In 2018, they stepped on the podium for the first time as a team in the Brazilian coastal city, also in third place.

"It feels great," Bansley said. "It was a special tournament for us last year, so it holds a special place in our hearts. It's very nice to be able to repeat that, even if, of course, we wanted more. We're happy that we came back this morning from a loss yesterday and were able to win against a very good Dutch team which played really well this week."

It was the seventh medal won by the Canadians in just one year and the third in the 2018-2019 season. They won gold in Warsaw, Las Vegas and Chetumal, silver in Ostrava and bronze in Itapema and Gstaad.