Mariafe Artacho del Solar (born 24 October 1993) is an Australian

beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two or more players on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the ...

player. She represented Australia at the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

and the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

in 2021. Artacho del Solar plays as a right-side defender. According to the Women's FIVB World Rankings, she and partner

Taliqua Clancy Taliqua Clancy (born 25 June 1992) is an Australian volleyball and beach volleyball player who represented Australia at the 2016 Summer Olympics in beach volleyball, partnered with Louise Bawden. She is the first Indigenous Australian volleyb ...

are ranked 5th as of 21 January 2020.

Early life

Artacho del Solar moved with her mother from

Lima, Peru Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of t ...

, to Sydney when she was 11 years old. They joined her older brother and extended family already living there. She spoke limited English and found that sport was the best way to communicate. She attended Gordon West Public School before she attended

Killara High School , motto_translation = The preservation of the best of the past and continued development into the future , slogan = A great school close to home , established = 1968 , principal = Robin Chand , teaching_staff = ~110 , type = Public, co-edu ...

, where she met her future Rio Olympics Beach Volleyball partner

Nicole Laird Nicole Laird (born 18 February 1993) is an Australian beach volleyball player. She represented her country at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Professional career Rio de Janeiro - 2016 Olympics Laird made her Olympic debut in Rio wit ...

. Artacho del Solar was then offered an AIS Scholarship with the Beach Volleyball program in 2012 which saw her move to Adelaide, South Australia in which the Australian Beach Volleyball Program is located.

Professional career

Rio de Janeiro – 2016 Olympics

Artacho del Solar made her Olympic debut at the

in Rio de Janeiro with then partner

. The pair did not win a match in Rio, losing to the US, Switzerland and China in their preliminary pool matches to finish the tournament in 19th place.

Gold Coast – 2018 Commonwealth Games

Artacho del Solar participated in the

2018 Commonwealth Games The 2018 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXI Commonwealth Games and also known as Gold Coast 2018, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth that were held on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, bet ...

on the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

with partner

. The duo won their 3 preliminary pool matches without losing a set, with wins over Cyprus' Manolina Konstantinou and Mariota Angelopoulou (21–14, 21–9), Grenada's Renisha Stafford and Thornia Williams (21–2, 21–11), and Scotland's Lynne Beattie and Melissa Coutts (21–9, 21–9). Finishing top of their pool, they advanced to the quarter-finals, where they defeated Rwanda's Charlotte Nzayisenga and Denyse Mutatsimpundu (21–9, 21–8) to advance to the semi-finals. After winning the opening set of their semi-final against Vanuatu's pairing of Linline Matauatu and Miller Pata, the duo lost their first set of the tournament to send the match to the decider, which they won to advance to the gold medal match (21–19, 16–21, 15–9). At the gold medal match, the duo lost to Canada's

Melissa Humana-Paredes Melissa Humana-Paredes (born October 10, 1992) is a Canadian beach volleyball player, who is partnered with Brandie Wilkerson. Humana-Paredes won the women's gold medal with Sarah Pavan at the 2019 Beach Volleyball World Championships. Early li ...

and

Sarah Pavan Sarah Lindsey Pavan (born August 16, 1986) is a Canadian beach volleyball and former indoor volleyball player. She was part of the Canada women's national volleyball team at the 2010 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship in Japan. With Meli ...

(19–21, 20–22) to take home the silver medal.

FIVB World Tour 2019

Artacho del Solar and Clancy are currently competing on the FIVB World Tour around the world. The pair have already won a Bronze in Xiamen, China and Gold in the Asian Beach Volleyball Championships at Maoming. They competed at the

2019 Beach Volleyball World Championships The 2019 Beach Volleyball World Championships was held in Hamburg, Germany from 28 June to 7 July 2019.

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, Germany, from 28 June to 7 July, winning bronze. Due to an injury to Artacho del Solar's left knee, the pair had three months off before competing again towards the end of 2019 in which they won gold at the 4-star double gender in

Chetumal, Mexico Chetumal (, , ; yua, label=Yucatec Maya, Chactemàal , ) is a city on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. It is the capital of the state of Quintana Roo and the municipal seat of the Municipality of Othón P. Blanco. In 2020 i ...

Tokyo – 2020 Olympics

On August 4, 2021, Artacho del Solar and partner

upset the world number-one team of Canada in the quarter finals. On August 5, 2021, they defeated the Latvian team with a convincing straight-sets win to advance to the gold-medal match against the United States. They lost to the U.S. in the finals, and took the silver medal.

Coaching

From August to October 2021, Artacho del Solar was coaching Year 10 high-school volleyball at Ormiston College in Brisbane, Australia.

Personal life

Artacho Del Solar is married to Jack Curtin, with their wedding taking place at a registry in November 2020.

References

External links

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Artacho, Mariafe 1993 births Living people Australian women's beach volleyball players Peruvian emigrants to Australia Australian people of Peruvian descent Beach volleyball players at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic beach volleyball players of Australia Beach volleyball players at the 2018 Commonwealth Games Beach volleyball defenders Sportspeople from Lima Commonwealth Games competitors for Australia Beach volleyball players at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic silver medalists for Australia Medalists at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic medalists in beach volleyball Commonwealth Games silver medallists for Australia Naturalised citizens of Australia Beach volleyball players at the 2022 Commonwealth Games