Nina Brunner from Steinhausen and Tanja Hüberli win Olympic bronze

Tanja Hüberli (from Schwyz) and Nina Brunner from Steinhausen have won Olympic bronze – but is it their farewell to beach volleyball?

Nina Brunner and Tanja Hüberli have been a duo for eight years, and have now crowned their journey together with bronze at the Olympic Games in Paris. But It could also be the end of the time together.

The Eiffel Tower glittered and sparkled, and numerous Swiss flags flew in the stadium at the foot of the 330-metre-high colossus. Tanja Hüberli and Nina Brunner let out a cry of relief, sank into the Parisian sand and hugged each other. Olympic bronze after a 21:17, 21:15 win against Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy. Against the duo who had won silver in Tokyo in 2021. But, above all, the duo that Brunner and Hüberli had lost to in the bronze medal match at the 2019 World Championships in Hamburg.

The Australian team defeated the other Swiss tandem, Zoé Vergé-Dépré and Esmée Böbner, in the quarter-finals.

Tanja Hüberli and Nina Brunner have been a duo for eight years, having lost to Joana Mäder and Anouk Vergé-Dépré in the round of 16 at Tokyo 2021 in a match that featured five match points on both sides.

Mäder and Vergé-Dépré went on to win bronze at the time, while Tanja Hüberli and Nina Brunner became European champions for the first time a week later. A success they repeated in 2023. They have thereby been among the best in the world for years.

The beach volleyball players stormed the stand
This time, Tanja Hüberli and Nina Brunner remained flawless until the semi-finals, not dropping a set in the three group matches, the round of 16 and the quarter-finals, and had a match point in Thursday's semi-final, on which they were unable to capitalise. Others might have been broken, but not Brunner and Hüberli. They had set their sights on the medals.

Tanja Hüberli (right) and Nina Brunner are delighted with their Olympic bronze     Photo: Anthony Anex
Tanja Hüberli (right) and Nina Brunner celebrate after winning bronze       Photo: Freshfocus
After their victory, the two beach volleyball players stormed into the stands            Photo: Claudio Thoma / freshfocus
What's next for the Swiss beach volleyball duo?   Photo: Yoan Valat/EPA
Hüberli and Nina Brunner celebrated with family members                            Photo: Freshfocus

Nevertheless, Tanja Hüberli slept badly on Friday night, as she revealed after the victory: "My thoughts were spinning, that's for sure. I was thinking that the odds were 50-50. And someone will have to come fourth." The Swiss finished in this most thankless of places nine times in Paris. "We had so much bad luck. That's why I wanted to win this medal. For us, for our family, but also for Switzerland," she said.

At 9.41 pm, they converted their first match ball, the Eiffel Tower sparkled, the lights flickered. Then they stormed into the stands and fell into the arms of their coaches. Christoph and Markus Dieckmann and Rivo Vesik, then also Damien Brunner, the ice hockey player to whom Nina Brunner is married and who had arrived on Friday.

Third medal for Swiss beach volleyball
This is the eighth medal for the Swiss delegation in Paris; the fifth in bronze alongside one gold and two silver. And it is also Switzerland's third Olympic medal in beach volleyball. Patrick Heuscher and Stefan Kobel won bronze in Athens in 2004, while Joana Mäder and Anouk Vergé-Dépré also came third in Tokyo in 2021. Now Nina Brunner and Tanja Hüberli have now done the same.

Their success is also the result of the professionalisation in beach volleyball. Twelve years ago, after the Olympic Games in London, the Swiss Volleyball Association initiated a project at the performance centre in Bern in order to better promote the sport. As is often the case in young sports, Switzerland quickly rose to the top of the world rankings, celebrating success with the Laciga brothers in the 1990s and winning Olympic bronze with Heuscher/Kobel in 2004. Now those responsible wanted to structure the promotion better.

Upheaval is imminent
It may also have been their last appearance together. Coach Dieckmann is leaving Switzerland to become head national coach in Germany. And the three best Swiss women's beach volleyball duos are also facing radical changes. One or other of them is said to want to start a family.

Asked whether they had already discussed whether and how they would continue after this season, Brunner and Hüberli say: "No."

The European Championships in the Netherlands begin on Tuesday. It is unlikely that Hüberli and Brunner will compete there, as they said after winning the bronze medal match. "The Olympic Games are the biggest thing, especially in beach volleyball. That's why this title certainly means more to us than the two European Championship titles," said 31-year-old Tanja Hüberli.

The future belongs to Böbner and Vergé-Dépré
But it wasn't just Nina Brunner and Tanja Hüberli who showed that you don't have to be afraid when looking into the future of Swiss beach volleyball. There is also 26-year-old Zoé Vergé-Dépré and Esmée Böbner, who is two years younger. The two only secured their ticket to the Olympic Games at the last moment, after a qualifying duel with the Olympic bronze medallists from Tokyo, Mäder and Zoé's sister Anouk.

They had also, somewhat surprisingly, advanced unchallenged to the round of 16 with three wins and then narrowly failed to make it through to the quarter-finals against Australia's Mariafe and Clancy. But they thereby proved that the future of Swiss beach volleyball lies with them.

The present, however, belonged to another duo on this Friday evening at the foot of the glittering Eiffel Tower: Nina Brunner from Steinhausen and Tanja Hüberli, who crowned their journey together with Olympic bronze.