Europeans make big leaps after successful Edmonton Challenge
Road to Paris
Few things will be more important in international beach volleyball in the next 11 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 dominant performance of European teams in last week’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Edmonton Challenge strongly helped the duos of the continent that are on the hunt for a spot at the Paris 2024 Olympics as five of the six tandems that made it to the semifinals in Canada are now inside the FIVB Olympic Rankings qualification zone.
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.
Men's silver medalists Hendrik Mol and Mathias Berntsen of Norway and bronze medalists Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava of Italy were the duos that benefited the most from their results in Canada as they entered the event outside the qualification zone and are now both inside it.
Cottafava and Nicolai earned 720 points with their third-place finish and now have 4,000, ranking 12th in the Olympic Rankings. Runners-up Mol and Berntsen secured 760 points in Edmonton and are now 17th on the list, with 3,560 points. The Edmonton Challenge winners João Pedrosa and Hugo Campos of Portugal made huge progress with the 800 points they earned, but are still a good 700 points outside the qualification zone, with 2,860.
Besides Norwegians and Italians, eight other European men’s teams find themselves among the 17 that would qualify for Paris 2024 if the deadline was today – Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum (first – 5,700 points), Spain’s Pablo Herrera/Adrián Gavira (fourth – 4,580), Sweden’s David Åhman/Jonatan Hellvig (sixth – 4,280), Austria’s Alexander Horst/Julian Hörl (tenth – 4,100), Poland’s Michal Bryl/Bartosz Łosiak (13th – 4,000), Germany’s Nils Ehlers/Clemens Wickler (14th – 3,880), Italy’s Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri (15th – 3,740) and the Netherlands’ Steven van de Velde/Matthew Immers (16th – 3,600).
Among the women, the three European duos that appeared in the Edmonton Challenge semifinals were all inside the qualification zone before the start of the event, but were able to move up and get one step closer to the next Olympics.
Silver medalists Marta Menegatti and Valentina Gottardi of Italy went from 11th to sixth with the 760 points they earned, which elevated their total to 4,540. Bronze medalists Barbora Hermannová and Marie-Sara Štochlová were also nicely rewarded for their campaign in Canada, which started in the qualifier and ended at the podium in third place, and now stand in 11th place with 3,920 points – they started the week in 14th and added 720 points to their total.
Swiss Zoé Vergé-Dépré and Esmée Böbner didn’t take a medal back home with their fourth-place finish at the Edmonton Challenge, but the 680 points collected in Canada helped the two move from eighth to fifth, with 4,660 points.
Europe has five other duos inside the qualification zone with Finland’s Taru Lathi/Niina Athiainen (tenth – 4,040 points), Latvia’s Tina Graudina/Anastasija Samoilova (12th – 3,900), the Netherlands’ Raisa Schoon/Katja Stam (13th – 3,760), Spain’s Liliana Fernández/Paula Soria (14th – 3,400) and Switzerland’s Nina Brunner/Tanja Hüberli (15th – 3,220).
More updates will be made to the Olympic Rankings following the conclusion of this week’s Elite16 event in Montréal, Canada.