The 2019 World Championships will run from June 28 to July 7 at the Hamburg Rothenbaum Stadium with a total prize purse of $1.000.000. About 13.000 fans will follow the 48 teams per gender on centre court. New winner teams will be crowned as the defending champions teamed up with new partners. Current world champion Laura Ludwig (Germany) is playing with Maggie Kozuch after Kira Walkenhorst had to retire form professional beach volleyball in January. On the men’s side, defending champions Evandro and Andre Loyola (Brazil) have split up. While Evandro joined forces with Olympic champion Bruno Schmidt, Andre Loyola is now playing with George Wanderley after splitting from Alison.
The tournament schedule outlines pool play until July 3 in 12 pools of four teams with the top two teams from each pool going directly to the elimination round. They will be joined by the eight best third-ranked teams. These 32 teams will continue in single-elimination play with the medal matches being played on July 6 and 7. Top favorites are Norwegian Vikings Anders Mol and Christian Sorum who have already posted three 4-star wins this season at Itapema (Brazil), Jianjiang (China) and Ostrava (Czech Republic). They will play in Pool A.
Pools Men
Pools Women
The 2019 World Tour Finals in Rome will gather the planet’s best beach volleyball teams on the men’s and women’s side. The US$ 600,000 event will take place at the Foro Italico sports complex from September 4-8, 2019. It is the same site where all previous five FIVB World Tour events in Rome took place.
In contrast to the previous editions of the World Tour Finals, the Rome event will be played in a regular 5-star event format with 32 teams featured in the main draw. The event will also be part of the Olympic qualification process towards Tokyo 2020 with the winner earning 600 points. Prior to Wednesday’s qualifiers, country quota matches will take place on Tuesday afternoon for Austrian, Brazilian, Italian and US teams. Main draw starts on September 5, quarterfinals and semifinals will be played on September 7 and the finals on September 8.
In the men’s competition, all top teams from Europe, the US and Brazil will be participating. Norwegian Vikings Anders Mol and Christian Sorum are the defending champions and probably the top favorites while Russian world champions Krasilnikov/ Stoyanovskiy have been struggling recently. 2017 champions Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena (USA) are seeded 7th, last weekend’s AVP Chicago winners Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb are seeded 17th. Jake Gibb after the Chicago final:
“We are looking forward to Rome now. The Rome event site feels like a gladiator pit.”
On the women’s side, top-seeds are Canadian world champions Humana-Paredes/ Pavan and America’s A-Team Alix Klineman/ April Ross who already battled it out in the Hamburg world champs and the AVP Manhattan Beach finals. After losing the aformentioned matches to Canada, the A-Team took revenge last weekend and defeated the world champions in the AVP Chicago Gold Series Championships. Following the two top teams are Aussies Artacho/Clancy and the strong Brazilian teams. In Tuesday’s US country quota playoff Flint/ Day will face Sweat/Walsh Jennings.
Find the full entry list on the FIVB event page.
It will be a major highlight of the season. After the Olympics and the Beach Major Series have been cancelled, the CEV European Championship in Jurmala (Latvia) is the most important event of the 2020 season, at least in Europe. From September 15-20, the European beach volleyball elite will return to Majori beach near Riga, Lavia’s capital. The beautiful seaside resort is the heart of Latvian beach volleyball and already hosted the continental championships in the summer of 2017. Last August, Jurmala hosted an FIVB 3-star event.
Defending champions are Norwegian Vikings Anders Mol/Christian Sørum and Latvian surprise team of Tina Graudiņa and Anastasija Kravcenoka. The Latvian young guns posted their first major international win when claiming last year’s title in Moscow. Tina Graudina:
“I am very happy with this news. It is awesome that the defence of the title will take place at home. I suppose Latvian sports fans are also happy to welcome the European Championship in Jurmala, especially at this time, when sports events are a rarity.”
32 teams per gender will fight for the European title and a prize purse of € 100.000 per gender. The CEV has announced that a strict hygiene protocol will be implemented and 30% of the stadium will be available for spectators. The regular stadium capacity has been detailed with 5000 seats. For the first three event days, fans need to buy separate tickets to attend the morning and afternoon sessions. All-day tickets are available for the last two days of the tournament.
