Four men’s European teams in the Olympic spotlight

I set out to pick four European pairs to put the spotlight on ahead of the men’s beach volleyball tournament at Tokyo 2020 among the 13 participating in the upcoming Olympics and I find myself tangled in a real conundrum. Do I focus on the well-seasoned tandems who have proven themselves over the years; do I go with the ones who seem to be in top shape right now, during the current season; do I base it on subjective personal preferences, or a combination of the above? It seems that whichever way I pick my four, there will be another nine teams unfairly left out.

So no hard feelings! I present to you: the number one team in the world rankings, the reigning world champions, the best placed European pair at the previous edition of the Olympic Games, and the European duo with the highest number of World Tour podiums this year! Fair enough…

Anders Mol & Christian Sorum have undoubtedly risen to the status of the world’s best team over the recent years. They are the number one pair by a very wide margin in both the FIVB World Ranking and the Olympic Ranking for Tokyo qualification. At the ages of 24 and 25, respectively, these Norwegians are experienced enough to have already piled up an enormous amount of achievements on the sand courts and young enough to have never played at the Olympics before.

Soon after they started playing together internationaly in 2016, Mol & Sorum became U22 European champions, but their big breakthrough came in the summer of 2018. The Norwegians won their first World Tour gold together at the Gstaad Major, the following week they triumphed as European champions in the Hague, and then finished with two more back-to-back golds on the World Tour, at the Vienna Major and at the Hamburg World Tour Finals. They also topped the podium at the next two editions of EuroBeachVolley, in 2019 and 2020, and are still reigning as three-time continental champions. On the World Tour so far, Mol & Sorum have collected a total of 12 gold, two silver and two bronze medals, including a World Championship third place in 2019.

From the reigning European champions, let’s move to the reigning world champions, Viacheslav Krasilnikov & Oleg Stoyanovskiy of Russia. Before they teamed up, Krasilnikov got very close to an Olympic medal and to the continental title, but he and Konstantin Semenov finished fourth at Rio 2016 and second at EuroBeachVolley 2016. Stoyanovskiy triumphed as a Youth Olympic champion at Nanjing 2014 and snatched a couple of age-category European titles with Artem Yarzutkin as a partner.

Krasilnikov, now 30, and Stoyanovskiy, 24, paired up in the fall of 2018 and have since won three golds, a silver and two bronze medals on the World Tour. They peaked with the title at the 2019 World Championship in Hamburg. On the continental stage, the Russia duo took silver at EuroBeachVolley 2020. Their most recent podium was earned last week at the four-star World Tour event in Gstaad.

Italy’s Paolo Nicolai & Daniele Lupo are the silver medalists of the Rio 2016 beach volleyball tournament. With the title staying in Brazil, the Italians were the highest placed European men’s team at the last edition of the Olympics. It was their second participation in the Games. Four years earlier, at London 2012, Nicolai & Lupo finished fifth.

It has been over 10 years since Daniele, now 30 years old, and Paolo, who will turn 33 during the Games in Tokyo, started playing together. On the World Tour, the well-seasoned duo have already collected three gold, eight silver and 10 bronze medals. They have triumphed as continental champions three times, winning the titles at EuroBeachVolley 2014, 2016 and 2017. At the most recent edition of the European Championship last year, Nicolai & Lupo took the bronze. They were one of the two men’s teams who won their Tokyo 2020 tickets at the 2019 Olympic qualification tournament in Haiyang.

At three of the five four-star World Tour events they appeared at this year, Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner made the podium. The Czechs are the European men’s pair with the highest number of World Tour medals in 2021.

Before the start of the season, Perusic & Schweiner had collected three silver medals on the Tour and only one of them was from a four-star event, on home sand in Ostrava. But at the very first four-star tournament in 2021, in Doha, the Czech team topped the podium for the first time since they started playing together in 2016. They followed it up with a bronze at one of the Cancun tournaments and another silver at their last appearance before the Olympics, at home in Ostrava. Their success has brought 26-year-old Ondrej and 27-year-old David up to number seven in the FIVB World Ranking ahead of their Olympic debut.