Marleen van Iersel

Marleen van Iersel (born January 7, 1988) is a Dutch professional beach volleyball player born in Breda.

She played indoor volleyball for a few years before she switched onto the beach in 2001. The first two years she played just for fun. In 2003 she was selected by the Sourcy Volleybalschool. Marleen impressed her coaches with her ambition, training hours and determination. Although her team mate in 2003 was Roos van der Hoeven with whom she achieved some decent results she qualified and participated for the Pattaya u18 World Championships with Jennifer Waninge. In Thailand they reached the 5th position. Then in 2004 she teamed up with Arjanne Stevens, but qualified for the same u18 World Championships, this time in Termoli with Margo Wiltens, reaching the semi finals and finishing in 4th position. Later that year she and Stevens qualified for the u21 World Championships in Porto Santo where they became 4th as well. When teaming up with Marloes Wesselink in 2005 their skills improved fast, which resulted in a successful season.

They started off in the Eredivisie of Beach volleyball in the Netherlands, which is the highest league in the country. In Callantsoog they became second and in Assen they reached the 3rd position. Their first World Tour event was in Gstaad finishing 57th among the world's best teams. In the Eredivisie they kept on playing in the top 3 finishing 3rd in Nesselande and Amstelveen, while they finished 2nd in Gouda and Groningen. They took part at the Dutch national championships under 20 in Almere which they won. After that they also won the Eredivisie tournament in Scheveningen, while in Monster they became 3rd. Next step was the European Championships under 20 in Israel where they were among the favourites. They reached the final, which they won and took their first international gold medal. A few weeks later at the World Championships under 19 in Saint-Quay-Portrieux they reached the 5th position. As Wesselink was already above 18 years now, Van Iersel participated at the European u18 Championships in Ukraine together with Angelique Vergeer finishing 4th. Later in 2005 they took part in the Dutch national senior championships, finishing 5th. Their final 2005 event was the World Championships under 21 held in Brazil where they finished 9th. Van Iersel/Wesselink received the award for Beach volleyball talents 2005.

In 2006 both girls decided to concentrate on beach volleyball fulltime, working on improving their skills more and more and also getting more experience. The first tournament of the season was an Eredivisie event in Kijkduin where they finished 2nd. On international level they started participating in higher quality tournaments like the European Championship Tour. In Hamburg they reached the 13th position. In the same weekend they travalled to Assen in their home country and in addition they won the TopTeams Cup Assen. In another 6 Eredivisie tournaments they reached one 1st place, four 2nd positions and a 3rd position, before heading to Marseille to play in a FIVB World Tour event. They reached the 41st position on the highest possible level. At the European Championship Tour event in Valencia they finished in 21st position. August 2006 turned out to be a good month for Van Iersel/Wesselink. First they travelled to South Korea to participate in an exhibition tournament where they finished 5th. A 4th position was reached a few days later in Austria during the European Championships under 23, while they had the ages of 18 and 19. The following weekend they took part in the Dutch national Championships in Scheveningen finishing 4th again, behind the three top Dutch teams for many years. With these results in mind they travelled to Poland to play the World Championships under 21 in Mysłowice. Again they faced opponents quite older than they were themselves, but this didn't seem to bother them much and they won the bronze medal. In the semi finals they lost from the eventual champions, while they had beaten the same team in the group stage earlier in the tournament. In addition they stayed in Poland to play the Warsaw FIVB World Tour event, finishing 33rd. At the u19 World Championships in Bermuda Van Iersel played alongside Daniëlle Remmers, again because Wesselink wasn't allowed to start as she already was above 19 at the start of the tournament. The tournament was shortened from 7–10 September 2006 to 7–9 September because of the Tropical Storm Florence which was likely to hit the island on September 10 or 11. Van Iersel and Remmers were on fire and cruised into the semi finals winning all their matches 2-0 in sets. Also the semi final match was won by two sets to love, which secured them a place in the final against Alice Rohkamper and Becchara Palmer from Australia. The Dutch girls managed to win the first set 21-17, but in a tight second set they conceded their first lost set in the tournament by 19-21. The third and final set wasn't successful either and was lost by 10-15. Rohkamper and Palmer became World Champions, while Van Iersel and Remmers had to deal with the silver medal. The day after all volleyball players were scheduled to leave the island before the hurricane arrived, but as the storm approached faster than expected the airport was closed and they had to wait until the storm, which did hurt the island, but didn't injure any people was over.

External links

• Official site
• FIVB profile