How Norway’s Beach Volley Vikings are changing beach volleyball

HERMOSA BEACH, California — In the spring of 2015, Mathias Berntsen and Anders Mol, cousins united by blood as much by a hereditary passion for the sport of volleyball, sat down and mapped out the future.

There was much to discuss.

The members of Norway’s senior national team at the time were aging out. After the 2016 Olympic Games, the future of their country’s success would fall on the shoulders of a handful of unproven teenagers, in a federation with little infrastructure and a resume not long with success.