While indoor and beach volleyball coaching roles differ significantly, their shared importance lies in guiding a team to victory. To offer fans a deeper understanding of coaching success directly from the experts, this “Secrets of Coaching Success” series features prominent European coaches from both disciplines, extracting their invaluable insights.
For this seventh installment, we spotlight one of the most distinguished beach volleyball coaches globally: Jetmund Berntsen. As a key figure behind the triumphant Norwegian duo, Anders Mol and Christian Sorum—current world and Olympic champions—his story alone speaks volumes. Let`s delve further into his remarkable career.
Born in 1973, Jetmund was the second of five siblings, all of whom achieved national team status in either volleyball or beach volleyball. His elder sister, Merita, renowned today as Anders Mol’s mother, was the family`s most accomplished athlete, representing Norway at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics beach event, securing ninth place.
As a child, Jetmund showed a keen interest in various ball sports, favoring football in summer and volleyball in winter. He followed his older sister into organized volleyball at age seven and began playing beach volleyball during the summers when he turned seventeen.
Jetmund`s beach volleyball passion was further ignited by his indoor national teammate, Jan Kvalheim, an internationally acclaimed professional beach volleyball player, and significantly by his brother-in-law, Kare Mol (Merita’s husband). Together, Berntsen and Mol secured a national championship bronze in 1995. Berntsen also competed in a few FIVB World Tour events, including the 1997 Marseille Open and the 1999 Stavanger Open. His indoor volleyball career reached its pinnacle about ten years later, winning the Norwegian national title and cup with the Forde team.
Merita Mol’s Olympic journey to Atlanta, coached by her husband Kare Mol, sparked Berntsen’s own interest in coaching. Their shared family life provided Jetmund ample opportunity to observe Kare’s coaching methods, seek advice, and experiment as he embarked on his coaching path.
With all five Mol children and both Berntsen children eventually embracing the sport, beach volleyball evolved into a family enterprise known as the Beachvolley Vikings. The initiative began in 2016 with three key players: Kare’s son Anders Mol, Jetmund’s son Mathias Berntsen (who had already clinched their first major international title, the 2015 CEV U20 European Championship, as a team), and Christian Sorum, who was considered an “adopted” member of the family.
The young Vikings continued their impressive streak of accomplishments. Anders Mol secured another U20 continental title in 2016, this time partnering with Christian Sorum’s younger brother, Aleksander. Later that year, he claimed the U22 title with Christian, and in 2017, earned U22 silver alongside Mathias Berntsen. That same year marked Anders’s senior-level international breakthrough, winning a Ljubljana Masters gold on the CEV European Tour with Christian and an Espinho two-star bronze on the FIVB World Tour with Mathias.
During this phase, the BeachVolley Vikings’ coaching staff, led by Jetmund Berntsen, was still experimenting with various player pairings. It quickly became evident that Anders and Christian possessed a unique synergy and shared understanding of the game, setting the stage for them to revolutionize the sport.
Mol and Sorum experienced their pivotal breakthrough in 2018, achieving an extraordinary feat by winning five consecutive elite events: the Gstaad five-star, the CEV European Championship in The Hague, the Vienna five-star, the World Tour Finals in Hamburg, and the Las Vegas four-star. This marked the start of their remarkable ascent.
The following year, 2019, saw Mol and Sorum secure six gold medals from seven World Tour finals appearances. The Vikings also earned bronze at the FIVB World Championship in Hamburg and at the World Tour Finals in Rome. They were crowned World Tour season champions consecutively in 2018 and 2019, further adding two more European titles back-to-back at Moscow 2019 and Jurmala 2020.
The year 2021 proved equally monumental for the Beachvolley Vikings. Mol and Sorum kicked it off with successive four-star titles on the World Tour, culminating in Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020. This was swiftly followed by their fourth consecutive EuroBeachVolley title in Vienna and another gold at the final World Tour Finals event in Cagliari.
Kare Mol transitioned to a less prominent role, allowing Jetmund Berntsen to assume leadership of the coaching team. Their success trajectory continued unabated into 2022. The inaugural Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour season saw Mol and Sorum claim three Elite16 gold medals, with the pinnacle being their World Championship title in Rome, adding to their illustrious collection. Following their victory at the Paris Elite16 in October, the duo regained and maintained the top position in the FIVB World Ranking.
While Mol and Sorum placed third at EuroBeachVolley 2022 in Munich, breaking their remarkable four-year continental title streak, the CEV BeachVolley Nations Cup in Vienna emerged as another major triumph for the Beachvolley Vikings in 2022. Under Jetmund Berntsen’s guidance as head coach for the Norwegian men’s national team (comprising Anders Mol, Christian Sorum, Hendrik Mol, and Mathias Berntsen), they secured victory at this inaugural event.
Mathias Berntsen, paired with Anders’s elder brother Hendrik Mol, also had a strong performance on the Beach Pro Tour, earning silver at the Agadir Challenge and concluding the year ranked 13th globally.
Jetmund Berntsen’s coaching prowess extends beyond men’s beach volleyball. At the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, he guided Emilie Olimstad and his daughter, Frida Berntsen, to bronze medals.
Since 2018, Jetmund Berntsen has also contributed to ToppVolley Norge, a private boarding school. This ideal institution allows aspiring volleyball and beach volleyball athletes to pursue their high school education alongside intensive athletic training.
#BeachVolleyball
Read the full interview in “Secrets of Coaching Success: Jetmund Berntsen (Part 2)”.
For the previous episode, see “Secrets of Coaching Success: Aigars Birzulis”.
