Clubs ready to go at Beach Volley European Cup in Balikesir
News
The stage of a Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour event last year, the Turkish coastal city of Balikesir is set to witness the start of a new beach volleyball tournament in the continent as it hosts the inaugural edition of the CEV Beach Volley European Cup this week.
From Thursday to Sunday, ten clubs from the continent in each gender (each of them represented by two teams and 4-6 players) will compete for the European crown at the club level at the Burhaniye Ören Beach. The event will reunite clubs from nine European nations and will involve as many as 92 athletes (48 men and 44 women).
During the pool play phase, which will take place from Thursday to Friday, clubs are split into two pools of five and competition will be held in a club vs. club format, with two duels involving the sides. The winners of each encounter take two points and the losers, one. At the end of the round, the first-placed club in each pool advances directly to the semifinals, while the second and third-best clubs play an extra round.
During the elimination rounds, clubs continue to play each other twice, but, in case of a tie, a golden set will be played to determine the winners.
CEV Beach Volleyball European Cup
The men’s and women’s tournaments in Balikesir will feature clubs from Austria, Azerbaijan, Czechia, France, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and hosts Türkiye, who will have two competitors in each gender.
The men’s event will feature some heavyweights of international beach volleyball, such as Russian Olympic medalist and world champion Oleg Stoyanovskiy, playing for Azerbaijan’s Murov Baku, Austrian Olympian Alexander Huber, competing for ABC Wörthersee, and French U19 world champions Artur Canet and Téo Rotar, representing Montpellier Beach Volley.
Among the women, EuroBeachVolley participants Tajda Lovsin and Tjasa Kotnik, playing for Slovenia’s Ludus Ljubljana, and Miroslava Dunarova, representing Czechia’s Telocvična Jednota, Sokol Brno, and Ukrainian Beach Pro Tour medalist Diana Lunina, competing for Türkiye’s Balikesir Büyüksehir Belediyespor Kulübü, are among the most popular faces.
Created in 2023 by CEV, the Beach Volley European Cup is an event designed to further grow the sport through the organisation of domestic and international club competitions.