Italian helps makes a tough call in the spirit of fair play

Beach Volleyball Major Series on Twitter

When @Federvolley's Daniele Lupo corrects the referee's call on match point 😮 Incredible fair play from the 2016 Olympic silver medalist 😇 https://t.co/yz5R7ok3tQ

Daniele Lupo is not only one the most talented stars of the beach elite – he’s also one of the fairest.

The Italian Olympic silver medalists again showed exactly why he’s a legend of the beach in the tense closing stages of his and Paolo Nicolai’s dramatic pool play defeat to Russians Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Igor Velichko.

With Daniele and Paolo 18-17 up in a thrilling final set, a huge spike from Stoyanovskiy looked as though it had bounced out of play. The referee called it out, the Italians had won.

Except, enter Daniele.

The honest defender, who in 2016 won the Italian Winning Attitude Award, held his hand up and explained to the referee the ball was good, it was on the line, that the point should be awarded to their opponents.

And so it did, the match continued, and two points later, the Russians celebrated an incredible 21-18, 16-21, 20-18 victory.

“It’s just how sport should be. I just think we need to be respectful to the game and to our opponents,” Daniele said afterwards.

“I saw the ball was in and there was no reason not to say it. I just wanted to help the referee because it was a tough angle for him to see what happened. It was a good match and it deserved to have a fair result.”

On the spirit of fair play that benefited the Russians, Oleg said: “That was amazing. Thanks to Dani, he’s a great player. They are really good sportsmen.”

The victory was still not enough for the Russians to qualify for the elimination stage, while Daniele and Paolo clung onto a place in a quarterfinal which will take place later this evening.

Nice one, Daniele! That's what you call sportsmanship.

The legend that is Daniele Lupo