Just as soon as the beach volleyball calendar seemed set, the schedules established, the itineraries drafted — always in pencil, folks — it shifted, in a big way, once more. For the third time in just a few months, the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour has altered its schedule, as well as the manner in which the events on that schedule will be played.
On Friday morning, a pair of Elite 16 events, in Cape Town, South Africa, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were moved from the spring to the fall, as Cape Town is now scheduled for November 2-6, and Rio for November 9-13. A Challenger event in Mexico, scheduled for the end of March, was cancelled, but four more Challenger-level tournaments were added: Qatar, May 5-8; Turkey, May 19-22; Portugal, July 14-17; and Morocco, July 21-24.
All four countries have been traditional hosts of beach volleyball tournaments, as Doha has been a regular feature on the FIVB schedule for years, welcoming off-beat events such as the King of the Court and the four-person world championships. Nine cities in Turkey have hosted international events in the past, namely Alanya, which last hosted a one-star in 2018. Espinho, Portugal, has long been a routine stop on the schedule, and Agadir, Morocco, which hosted three events, in 2011, 2017, and 2018, was a popular event on tour in the few years it has been on the schedule.
Details still remain fuzzy — no specific cities have been listed for the new events — and the format of the new Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour remains a frustrating one for the vast majority of players. After extensive discussion with the IBVPA, the international players union, Volleyball World added a qualifier to the Elite 16 level, which previously only included the top 15 teams in the world and one wild card. With the perceived lack of mobility between tiers, Volleyball World added a 16-team qualifier, in which four teams will make the main draw. This means that the top 11 will be seeded directly into the main draw, with one spot reserved for a promoter wild card.
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As it stands now, the schedule features 11 Challenger events, nine Elite 16s, and World Championships, scheduled to be held in Rome, Italy, June 10-19. But with the lack of Elite 16 events prior to Rome — there are just three — players in the Elite 16 tier may be forced to play down to the Challenger level, thereby pushing more teams out of the Challenger tier and into the Futures, the bottom tier which has just six events on the calendar.
Such a trickle-down is being seen at the upcoming Tlaxcala Challenge, which boasts 50 teams on the reserve list for the men, including Latvian blocker Edgars Tocs, who finished fourth at the Tokyo Olympics with Martins Plavins. There are 34 women’s teams on the reserve list, including Olympians Viktoria Orsi Toth of Italy and Japan’s Megumi Murakami.
It is, of course, a new system, with new kinks to be worked out, and COVID restrictions continue to make it no small feat to host an international event. Volleyball World said that the schedule is still not yet finalized, and that more events are likely to be added throughout the year.
