Europe starts the race for third-straight beach world title
News
With 41 representatives among the 96 teams that will be on the court during the next ten days in the Italian capital Rome, the European continent is set to start its campaign at the 2022 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships on Friday.
Europe will have 22 of the 48 men’s teams and 19 of the 48 women’s duos competing for the world titles at the Foro Italico after Swedish Jonatan Hellvig and David Ahman were forced to withdraw due to an injury, being replaced by a team from the United States. However, the continent was also able to make the last-minute addition of Dutch Christiaan Varenhorst and Steven van de Velde, who were called in to replace a Ghanaian duo that withdrew.
The 41 European teams entered in the tournament will fight to take the continent to the top of the podium for a third-straight time, following the victories of Germans Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst in 2017 and Russians Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov in 2019. Before them, the continent triumphed in 2009 with Germans Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann and in 2013 with Dutch Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen.
Although the Russians won’t be in Rome to defend their title, several of the contenders in the men’s tournament come from Europe. Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum of Norway are certainly among them, as are Brouwer and Meeusen and Italians Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava, who lead a strong group of five home teams after they won last week’s Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 event in Jurmala.
Paolo Nicolai“The Italian teams in the main draw at Rome 2011 were there just to participate and do their best, but things have changed. Right now, we have a lot of teams who can compete with the best. We are ready to play our best beach volleyball and we’ll see… Everything can happen.”
Italian Beach Volleyball Player
Besides Norway, the Netherlands and Italy, the other European nations represented in the men’s tournament in Rome will be Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Poland and Spain.
World Championships Match Schedule and Results
On the women’s side, world ranking leaders Raisa Schoon and Katja Stam of the Netherlands, reigning EuroBeachVolley champions Nina Brunner and Tanja Hüberli of Switzerland and Tokyo Olympic semifinalists Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka represent Europe’s best hopes of taking the title, which was won by Canadians Saran Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes in 2019.
Graudina and Kravcenoka form one of the 29 European teams that will be on the court on Friday, the first day of the tournament. The two will play against Morocco’s Imane Zeroual and Mahassine Siad in the opening match of Pool C, which also features Swiss Joana Heidrich and Anouk Vergé-Dépré and Japanese Miki Ishii and Sayaka Mizoe.
Anastasija Kravcenoka“I think we have a strong pool. We have two really good teams and one that we are not familiar with. So, it’s going to be a great start.”
Latvian Beach Volleyball Player
Besides Latvia, the Netherland and Switzerland, the European continent will also be represented by duos from Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Spain in the event.
The tournament will start with pool play splitting the 48 teams into 12 pools. The top two teams in each group and the four best-ranked thirds will advance directly to the elimination round while the eight remaining third-placed duos will need to play in a lucky loser round to fill the four spots left.
Europe has a strong tradition in the World Championships, having won 18 medals (four gold, seven silver, seven bronze) among its men’s and women’s teams in the first 12 editions of the event.