The Road to Paris: Europeans dominate Olympic Rankings Top-10

Few things will be more important in international beach volleyball in the next 15 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 in their Road to Paris.

The success of European teams at last week’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Uberlândia, Brazil, has reflected on the latest update of the FIVB Olympic Rankings, further increasing the dominance of the duos from the continent at the top of the table.

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.

Europe entered the Uberlândia Elite16 event with six men’s teams placed in the top ten of the Olympic Rankings and has been able to improve that total by two, now being home to eight of the ten best-placed teams in the ranking.

David Åhman and Jonatan Hellvig were able to retain the top spot in the Olympic Rankings with their fifth-place finish – the Swedish have now 3,520 points. Uberlândia silver medallists Anders Mol and Christian Sørum of Norway moved up from third to second place, adding 1,100 points to their total, which now stands at 3,400. Spanish Pablo Herrera and Adrián Gavira, who entered the week in second place, finished ninth in Brazil and are now third (3,220).

The bronze medals won by Michal Bryl and Bartosz Łosiak did a lot for the Polish, propelling them from 20^th to sixth place, with 2,500 points. Sitting ahead of them in fifth place with 2,520 points, Germans Clemens Wickler and Nils Ehlers also moved up after entering the event ranked 11^th.

FIVB Men’s Olympic Rankings

The Netherlands’ Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen (eighth - 2,280 points) and Stefan Boermans/Yorick De Groot (ninth – 2,260) and Italy’s Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri (tenth – 2,220) are also part of the top ten while Austria’s Robin Seidl/Moritz Pristausz (15^th – 2,040) and Italy’s Paolo Nicolai/Samuele Cottafava (16^th – 1,960) are currently inside the qualification zone.

The winners of the Uberlândia Elite16, Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner from Czechia, and fourth-placed Matthew Immers and Steven van de Velde, also gave a huge boost to their Olympic aspirations as, despite having only three results considered, they are on the edge of entering the qualification zone, ranking 18^th and 19^th with 1,960 points each.

Among the women, Europe end the Uberlândia event with two teams among the ten that have the most Olympic points accumulated – Italy’s Marta Menegatti/Valentina Gottardi (seventh – 2,560 points) and the Netherlands’ Raisa Schoon/Katja Stam (eighth – 2,560).

However, when considering the country quota of two teams per nation that can qualify for the Olympics, which would remove three teams from Brazil and one from the United States from the equation, Italians and Dutch would be sixth and seventh respectively, being joined by Switzerland’s Zoé Vergé-Dépré/Esmée Böbner (eighth – 2,360), France’s Lézana Placette/Alexia Richard (ninth – 2,300) and Germany’s Karla Borger/Sandra Ittlinger (tenth – 2,280), pushing Europe to have five teams in the top ten.

FIVB Women’s Olympic Rankings

Finland’s Niina Ahtiainen/Taru Lathi (11^th – 2,160), Latvia’s Tina Graudina/Anastasija Samoilova (13^th – 2,120), Spain’s Liliana Fernandez/Paula Soria (14^th – 2,060), Czechia’s Barbora Hermannová/Marie-Sara Stochlova (15^th – 1,900) and Switzerland’s Nina Brunner/Tanja Hüberli (16^th – 1,860) are all inside que qualification zone as well.

There should be no significant updates in the Olympic Rankings until June 5, when the points awarded in the Elite16 event in Ostrava, which will take place the weekend before, will be accounted for.