Where Champions Are Made: Tenerife
Editorial
Even though Tenerife is technically the home of Spanish beach volleyball teams, the most popular of the Canary Islands has developed a strong reputation for welcoming players from all over Europe with open arms. In fact, it’s hard to find an elite athlete in the continent who hasn’t been in Tenerife at some point.
The man who introduced this magnificent piece of sand where the sun shines around 340 days a year to the world of beach volleyball was Sixto Jimenez, a popular Spanish player in the 1990s, who was the first to pick the area as his training spot.
Because of him, a few other European teams came to the island before the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, but it wasn’t until shortly after the Games, when Jimenez retired and started coaching, that more teams from the continent started making more frequent trips to the island to practice.
The women, however, weren’t much present until about ten years later. And once again, it was Jimenez who changed that. As the head coach of the Spanish National Team at the time, he picked Tenerife as the base for the country’s female program.
Liliana Fernandez“I moved to Tenerife in 2005 and Elsa (Baquerizo) came one year later, to be part of the U-23 team. Once we started getting good results, more teams started coming to practice with us. In the past, players would go to Brazil or the USA in the winter but Tenerife has all they need and is a lot closer. It’s been great for us as we don’t need to go anywhere to practice with some of the best teams in the world and we enjoy having them here."
Spanish Beach Volleyball Player
At first, European teams mostly saw Tenerife as somewhere they could practice outside during the rigorous winter months. The frequency of their trips to the Spanish island started to increase to the point that most teams now go there multiple times a year now.
The setup in Tenerife is fairly simple. When beach volleyball first became a thing, the place to be was Los Cristianos Beach, in the south of the island. In 2009, the courts were moved to the neighbor Las Vistas Beach, where the sand strip is wider.
Four courts are available for the players from around the world from dawn to dusk. For those looking for more privacy and less battling the conditions, there are also some private clubs in the region where training sessions can be scheduled.
Some of the best beach volleyball matches in the planet are played in Tenerife. And not many people, outside the players themselves and the locals, are able to watch them.
Oleg Stoyanovskiy“I started going to Tenerife in 2011 and I’ve been there quite a few times. We call it the ‘island of eternal spring’. Conditions are always perfect, the facilities are great and we can practice all-year long.”
Reigning World Champion
Not many sports are as simple to play as beach volleyball. A ball and a net are all it takes to play the sport at the amateur level. For the professionals, however, having an efficient training facility is a mandatory condition for success due to the high level the sport has reached over the last 30 years. European beach volleyball teams are no exception and one of the nicest things about it is that players can find exactly what they need in a variety of different setups. Our series “Where Champions Are Made” will present some of the most popular beach volleyball training facilities on the continent.