Heather Bansley

Heather Bansley
on the FIVB World Tour in Prague 2014
portrait
birthday	September 13, 1987
place of birth	London (Ontario), Canada
size	1.70 m
Partner	2009–2013 Elizabeth Maloney 2013–2016 Sarah Pavan since 2016 Brandie Wilkerson
World ranking	Position 9
successes
2010 - Canadian Champion 2015 - Second Open Prague 2015 - Second Major Poreč 2015 - World Championship Fifth 2015 - Third Major Gstaad 2015 - Third Grand Slam Yokohama 2015 - Fourth World Tour Final 2016 - Third Grand Slam Moscow 2016 - Second Major Poreč 2016 - Olympia -Fifth 2017 - Fifth World Championship 2018 - Third 4-Star Itapema 2018 - Second 4-Star Ostrava 2018 - Winner 4-Star Warsaw 2018 - Third 5-Star Gstaad 2018 - Fifth World Tour Final 2018 - Winner 4-Star Las Vegas 2018 - Winner 3-Star Chetumal 2019 - Third 4-Star Itapema
(As of July 23, 2019)

Heather Bansley (born September 13, 1987 in London (Ontario) ) is a Canadian beach volleyball player . With Sarah Pavan she reached various finals on the FIVB World Tour and fifth place at the 2016 Olympic Games.

Career

Bansley took part in 2007 with Dianne Burrows at the Junior World Championships in Modena and finished 19th. The following year she played a satellite tournament in Laredo with Christine Lamey . At the Phuket Open 2009 she and her new partner Elizabeth Maloney took part in a tournament on the FIVB World Tour for the first time. On the World Tour 2010 , Bansley / Maloney came 17th in Kristiansand , before they again reached the top ten in Phuket in ninth. They also won the national championship. In Beijing they played their first Grand Slam in the 2011 season . At the World Cup in Rome , Bansley / Maloney defeated the Australian duo Hinchley / Rohkamper at the beginning and came third in the group in the first main round; there they defeated the Americans Kessy / Ross . In the further course of the season they made seventh in the Québec Open, ninth in the Grand Slam in Stare Jabłonki and seventh in Phuket, further top ten results. They came fourth at the NORCECA championship in Mexico . They started the 2012 World Tour with places seven and nine in Sanya and Shanghai . Then they did not get beyond 17th place. In the Continental Tour 2013 they finished fourth and fifth. After Bansley finished ninth with Sarah Pavan in Corrientes, she finished fourth with Maloney at the Continental Cup in Campinas .

She then formed a firm duo with Pavan. At the 2013 World Championships in Stare Jabłonki they reached the first main round as second in the group, which they lost in the tiebreak against the Austrians Hansel / Schützenhöfer . Fifth in the Grand Slam in Long Beach , they achieved their best result of their first year together. They achieved the same result at the start of the 2014 World Tour at the Prague Open. After three 17th places in a row, they were also fifth at the Grand Slam in Gstaad . They achieved further top ten placements as ninth in Klagenfurt and fifth in Stare Jabłonki.

They opened the 2015 season with fifth place in Fuzhou . Then they reached a final of an FIVB tournament for the first time at the Prague Open and were defeated by the Brazilians Ágatha / Bárbara . Shortly afterwards they were also in the final of the Poreč Major. This time they had to admit defeat to Larissa / Talita . At the World Cup in the Netherlands , they came second in the group to the quarter-finals, where they were eliminated against Antonelli / Juliana . This was followed by two third places at the Gstaad Major and the Grand Slam in Yokohama and Pavan / Bansley also stayed in the top ten at the other FIVB tournaments of the year. They finished fourth at the World Tour Final in Fort Lauderdale . On the World Tour 2016 they finished fifth in Rio de Janeiro and third in Moscow and ninth several times. In Poreč they reached the final for the second time in a row; this time they lost against the German duo Laboureur / Sude . As the third best team in the Olympic rankings, they qualified for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro . There they stayed in the preliminary round and in the round of 16 without losing a set before they had to admit defeat to the later Olympic champions Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst in the quarter-finals . After the Olympics, Bansley and Pavan split.

At the World Tour Final 2016 in Toronto , Bansley competed for the first time with her new partner Brandie Wilkerson and finished ninth there. Bansley / Wilkerson came in ninth place at the tournaments in Fort Lauderdale (five stars) and Rio de Janeiro on the 2017 World Tour . After a fifth place at the three-star tournament in The Hague , they finished ninth again at the higher-quality tournaments in Poreč and Gstaad .

Web links

• Profile at the world association FIVB (English)
• Profile in the Beach Volleyball Database (English)
• Portrait at olympic.ca (English)
• Portrait at Canadian Athletes Now (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ FIVB world rankings (as of July 22, 2019)