Twin brothers, who honed their skills on the volleyball courts of Richmond, claimed England's first ever beach volleyball medal at the Commonwealth Games.

Javier and Joaquin Bellol, aged 22, who came to the UK from Spain aged 10, won bronze at the weekend in a breakthrough for the sport in this country.

It is a little known fact that Richmond has one of the best and most successful volleyball clubs, both indoor and beach, in the country – recently winning a host of trophies at the national championships.

Today the brothers train at the Barn Elms sports centre, which has four beach volleyball courts. Before that they played indoor volleyball at Richmond VC, which operates from a number of courts across the borough.

Richmond Volleyball also runs beach volleyball teams and every summer offers training sessions at the sandy courts at Teddington Sports Centre, in Broom Road.

At the weekend, the brothers rebounded from their semi-final defeat to Canada to claim bronze in the men's event after a 21-11 21-12 win over Rwandan pair Olivier Ntagengwa and Venuste Gatsinze.

However, after making history, they insisted they will only have one day off before resuming training as they battle to become the first British side to qualify for an Olympics.

Javier said: "We're not a team that sits on a win, we like to get back to work as soon as possible. We won't forget this moment because this is huge for us and our country.

"We're the first English team to get a medal at the Commonwealth Games, why can't we be the first team to qualify for an Olympic Games as well?

"That is the ultimate goal, Paris might be a little bit too early but we're going to fight for it every step of the way. Hopefully we can do that and be seeing you in Paris in two years' time."

After the victory, Javier and Joaquin rushed to celebrate with team manager, thei mother Barbara, and training partner younger brother Enrique. Beach volleyball is a family affair for the Bellos siblings, who coached by father Luis.

Joaquin insisted beach volleyball has a huge future in the UK, adding: "We're going to keep working, keep trying to push up the world rankings to try to qualify for the Olympics.

"This is just the beginning for us and the beginning of beach volleyball in the UK."

Javier recently graduated in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Royal Holloway University, while Joaquin has started his fifth year studying medicine at Imperial College. They also both coach volleyball.

In 2017, when playing at Richmond the brothers won England's first ever gold medal at the u18 Commonwealth Youth Games Championships .

Richmond Volleyball - https://www.richmondvolleyball.co.uk/