Nina Brunner will return this week to the Beach Pro Tour in Saquarema alongside Tanja Hüberli, in her first tournament since August 2024 and in her competitive debut after the birth of her daughter Mila. The news has clear sporting significance, but it also opens up a much more personal story: that of a player returning to the sand at a different stage of her life, shaped by motherhood, by a new family routine and by a different relationship with her career.

Brunner stepped away from the circuit shortly after winning Olympic bronze in Paris 2024 and triumphing in Hamburg, and since then she has gone through a period in which volleyball no longer occupied the centre of everything. “I have to admit that, when I was pregnant and also afterwards, when Mila was still very, very young, I didn’t miss playing volleyball that much,” she said. The desire to return did not come immediately. “After about two and a half months, I thought it would be nice to give it another try,” she added, in a line that marks the real starting point of this new chapter and that now coexists with a longer-term goal such as Los Angeles 2028.

A pause at the top and a new life away from the sand

Motherhood also arrived at one of the highest points of her career. Brunner, alongside Hüberli, had reached the Olympic podium in Paris and had just won in Hamburg, two milestones that capped one of the strongest stretches of her career. Even so, she did not leave that moment with an immediate return plan already in place. “After the birth, for a while I thought I would not go back to thinking about beach volleyball,” she later admitted in the Swiss press. The pause, then, was not shaped by the urgency to compete, but by the beginning of a new life.

“It is a new and intense life with Mila,” she said. And it was from within that new normal that the idea of returning resurfaced. “Suddenly, after two months, the thoughts came that it would be nice to keep playing.” That inner shift opened the door to a comeback that was still not decided at the time, but that gradually began to take shape over the following months.

The comeback cannot be understood without Damien and Mila

If that desire has now turned into a real return to the circuit, Brunner links it very clearly to the support of her husband, Damien Brunner. The former ice hockey player will take care of Mila during trips, training camps and tournaments, an involvement that makes this return more than an individual decision. “This is only possible thanks to the support of my husband Damien,” the player essentially explained when describing how this new phase was being organised. The fact that he has only recently ended his own sporting career gives even more meaning to that division of roles.

That family reorganisation is best seen in everyday details. When the duo train at the centre in Bern, Damien and Mila can also be seen by the court. At the training camp in Tenerife, the baby was with her grandparents. And for international tournaments, the plan is for Damien to travel with them. “I couldn’t imagine being away from my family for a long time,” Brunner admitted. At the same time, she does not hide the practical questions that come with this new life. “At the same time, we don’t know how Mila will react to long flights or how she will deal with jet lag.” Even within the competition routine they have looked for concrete solutions: in order to keep their competitive focus, Brunner and Hüberli will stay together as they did in the past, while Damien and Mila will be in another room.

Back to her body, back to Tanja, back with a clear horizon

The return has not been automatic physically either. Four months after giving birth, Brunner began training on her own, while Hüberli was also gradually working her way back from an ankle injury. “I have tried to be patient on the way back to being a high-level athlete,” she explained. That patience was not rhetorical, but a genuine necessity. “It was important in order to regain confidence in my own body.” At the same time, the Swiss player made it clear that the sensations were positive quite early on: “I quickly had a good feeling; my body handled the pregnancy and the birth well.” The biggest challenge, in her own words, was “regaining tension and stability in the air.”

The other big decision was who to come back with. And there, Tanja Hüberli was the first option from the start. “My first call was to Tanja, because in our nine years together we have experienced, achieved and built an incredible amount,” Brunner explained when the reunion of the pair was announced. The choice was not based only on their shared record, but also on the trust built up over nearly a decade. The player herself summed it up like this: “I am very happy to continue on this path together.” At the same time, Hüberli has also spoken naturally about Mila becoming part of the team dynamic. “She brings variety to everyday life; Mila is part of the whole thing,” she said. And she added another line that reinforces the tone of the profile: “Nina and Mila are completely relaxed.”

The same ambition, but with a different perspective

In this comeback, Brunner is returning to compete seriously and with a longer-term goal that she has already made clear: Los Angeles 2028. “And if I come back, then I come back fully committed and with the goal of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles,” she said when speaking about this new stage. That ambition, however, now coexists with a different outlook on sport and on her own life. “I don’t think this will reduce my ambition,” she said. “But it will definitely put a lot of things into perspective now that I have a different focus in life.” In that combination of intact ambition and transformed priorities lies, probably, the most accurate image of the Nina Brunner returning to the sand this week.