Chiang Mai medalists move up in the Olympic Rankings
Road to Paris
Few things will be more important in international beach volleyball in the next eight months than qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympics. The race to be a part of sports’ greatest event is always fascinating and generates endless interesting storylines involving the top teams in the world. We will be following the Olympic qualification process throughout the entire period and will also present some articles that will help you understand how it works and introduce you to some of the stars of the sport that will be chasing something special on their Road to Paris.
The European beach volleyball teams that made it to the podium of last week’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Challenge event in Chiang Mai, Thailand, were rewarded for their efforts twice as besides taking home the hardware, they also managed to improve their situations in the FIVB Olympic Rankings, getting closer to the Paris 2024 Games.
The rankings, which will determine 17 of the 24 teams that will compete in next year’s Paris Olympics, are formed by the total points earned by teams considering their best 12 results in international and continental tournaments played until June 10, 2024, when the 17 best-ranked men’s and women’s teams will secure a spot in the Games.
Dutch Matthew Immers and Steve van de Velde entered the event already inside the qualification zone, but the gold medals they won in Thailand and the 800 ranking points that came with them strongly benefited the two, who jumped from 16th to 13th place with their new total of 6,480 points.
The victory in Asia also helped them in the internal battle involving Dutch teams as they not only improved their advantage over Stefan Boermans and Yorick De Groot (4,440 points), but also got closer to Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, who rank eighth, with 6,960.
Polish Piotr Kantor and Jakub Zdybek are still outside the qualification zone, mostly because of their late start to the Olympic race, but managed to gain a lot of ground with the 760 points collected with their second-place finish in Thailand.
The two, who became partners in June and got their first podium appearance on the Beach Pro Tour in Chiang Mai, now have 5,060 points and are in 22nd place, just five spots outside the qualification zone – with only ten eligible results, they could move up again when they get on the court.
Europe continues to dominate the top ten of the Olympic Rankings with Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum (first – 9,460 points), Italy’s Paolo Nicolai/Samuele Cottafava (second – 7,740), Germany’s Nils Ehlers/Clemens Wickler (third – 7,740), Sweden’s Jonatan Hellvig/David Åhman (fourth, 7720), Spain’s Pablo Herrera/Adrián Gavira (seventh - 7,360) and Italy’s Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri (ninth – 6,920).
Also inside the qualification zone are Austria’s Julian Hörl/Alexander Horst (12th – 6,820) and Poland’s Michal Bryl/Bartosz Łosiak (17th – 5,880), giving Europe ten of the 17 spots at the moment.
Finland’s Taru Lathi and Niina Ahtiainen, who took the continent to the women's podium in Chiang Mai with a second-place finish, also moved up, going from 15th to 14th. The Finnish earned 760 points in Thailand and elevated their total to 6,060.
With fifth-place finishes and 600 points collected in Chiang Mai, Daniela Álvarez/Tania Moreno and Karla Borger/Sandra Ittlinger also returned home from Thailand in strong positions to contend for a spot at next year’s Games.
The young Spanish, who took silver at this year’s CEV EuroBeachVolley, continued to climb the rankings, going from 13th to 12th (6,180), while the Germans entered the qualification zone in 17th place (5,620).
Also inside the qualification zone are the Netherlands’ Katja Stam/Raisa Schoon (fifth – 7,480 points), Italy’s Marta Menegatti/Valentina Gottardi (sixth – 7,440), Switzerland’s Esmée Böbner/Zoé Vergé-Dépré (eighth – 6,760), Latvia’s Tina Graudina/Anastasija Samoilova (tenth – 6,460), Switzerland’s Nina Brunner/Tanja Hüberli (11th – 6,340), Germany’s Svenja Müller/Cinja Tillmann (13th - 6,140), Finland’s Taru Lathi/Niina Ahtiainen (15th - 5,640), Lithuania’s Monika Paulikiene/Aine Raupelyte (15th – 5,980) and France’s Lézana Placette/Alexia Richard (16th – 5,720).
The FIVB Olympic Rankings will be updated again next week, right after the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in João Pessoa, Brazil.