Raul Mesa Lite ( Spanish: Raúl Mesa Lite ; born April 16, 1982 , Zaragoza ) is a Spanish beach volleyball player and has been playing for Spain's beach volleyball team since 2001. Champion of Europe, winner and medalist of national championships, participant in the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing .
 Raul Mesa | |||||||||||||
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| general information | |||||||||||||
| Full name | Raul Mesa Lite | ||||||||||||
| Born | April 16, 1982 (37 years old) Zaragoza , Spain | ||||||||||||
| Citizenship |  Spain | ||||||||||||
| Growth | 190 | ||||||||||||
| Weight | 89 | ||||||||||||
| Prize [* 1] (Beach volleyball) | $ 284,183 | ||||||||||||
| Team Information | |||||||||||||
| Team | Benidorm , Alicante | ||||||||||||
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Biography
Raul Mesa was born on April 16, 1982 in Zaragoza . He was trained in the city of Benidorm, province of Alicante , from the very beginning he trained with his friend Pablo Herrera , with whom he subsequently performed at most tournaments.
He first declared himself at the junior competitions back in 1999, becoming the champion of Spain among juniors, then he held this title for the next several years. In 2001, he won a silver medal at the Youth World Championships, and a year later he won gold in a similar world championship. In 2004, he also won the European Championship among athletes under 23 years old.
He achieved the greatest success in his sports career in the 2005 season, when he entered the main squad of the Spanish national team and visited the European Championship in Moscow , where, together with Herrera, he defeated all rivals in the tournament bracket, including defeating the Swiss Patrick in the final Heusher and Stefan Kobel - thereby won the gold medal and received a prize of $ 20 thousand.
Thanks to a series of successful performances, he was awarded the right to defend the country's honor at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing . At the group stage of men's beach volleyball, she and Herrera beat the representatives of Estonia and Austria, losing only to the Chinese, and successfully qualified from second place. Caught in the playoffs, already at the 1/8 finals stage with a score of 0: 2, they were defeated by the Americans Todd Rogers and Phillip Delhosser , who ultimately became the winners of this Olympic tournament.
After the Beijing Olympics, Mesa remained in the main volleyball team in Spain and continued to take part in major international tournaments. So, in 2009, together with his new partner, Inosensio Lario, he played at the European Championships in Sochi , but failed to overcome the group stage. In 2010, he won the CEV Challenger tournament in Bulgaria.
At the 2011 World Cup in Rome, he and Lario successfully left the group, but in the 1/16 finals they were stopped by the Brazilian team.
Links
- Raul Mesa - statistics on Beach Volleyball Database
- Raul Mesa - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com
- Raul Mesa Lite (Spanish) - Page on the website of the Spanish Olympic Committee
- Raul Mesa (English) - page on the website of the International Olympic Committee