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2022 Beach Outlook: Switzerland, Italy & Latvia

Beach Volleyball

Article Fri, Jan 28 2022
Author: Guilherme Torres

The years immediately after the ones in which the Olympics are played are typically the stage for massive changes in beach volleyball. From players retiring and new teams being formed to tournaments being revamped, 2022 won’t be an exception and will have all of it.

Vergé-Dépré and Heidrich remain together after winning Switzerland's first women's Olympic medal in beach volleyball (Photo: Volleyball World)

The exceptionally long five-year period between the Rio 2016 and the Tokyo 2021 Games has kept teams around the world together for longer than ever before, but now with Paris 2024 just three years away, several moves have been made over the last couple of months. The international season is set to start in March with the new Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour and several European teams are already in training camps, a handful of them in Tenerife, the ‘Island of Eternal Spring’.

If you couldn’t keep track of all the moving pieces, here’s where you’ll get up-to-date on them ahead of the start of the season. In the second of this four-piece series on the top 12 European countries, we’ll take time to analyze Switzerland, Italy and Latvia.

Switzerland

Switzerland women seem to be adept of the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” mantra. As they should. After the most successful year for women’s beach volleyball in the country, Tokyo Olympic bronze medalists Joana Heidrich and Anouk Vergé-Dépré and 2021 EuroBeachVolley champions Nina Betschart (now Brunner, after she got married) and Tanja Huberli will very understandably remain together. With a younger team in Zoé Vergé-Dépré and Esmee Bobner quickly progressing, Switzerland is set to continue among the best in the world for years to come.

The men’s side, on the other hand, saw a significant change caused by the retirement announcement made by Mirco Gerson shortly after the Tokyo Olympics. His partner, Adrian Heidrich, had to look for a new partner and picked the promising Leo Dillier. Marco Krattiger and Florian Breer will enter their third season as partners while Quentin Metral and Yves Haussener also continue to share the same side of the court.

Young Player/Team to Watch: Switzerland has a couple of young and talented defenders in Dillier and Breer. The youngest and taller of the two, Dillier will have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of playing with arguably the country’s top blocker who’s fresh from his first Olympics in Heidrich and should improve at a fast face once the season starts.

Italy

The separation of Olympic medalists Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai after ten years of success was certainly one of the hottest topics of the off-season. The two had different strategies going forward with Lupo joining veteran and fellow Olympian Alex Ranghieri while Nicolai decided to pair with 23-year-old Samuele Cottafava. Tokyo Olympians Adrian Carambula and Enrico Rossi have an argument for being the top team in the country right now and the new duo of Gianluca Dal Corso and Jakob Windisch certainly has a lot of potential to be developed.

Potential is obviously not lacking when it comes to Valentina Gottardi either. The 19-year-old was selected to be the new partner of three-time Olympian Marta Menegatti after the Tokyo Games and made her international debut with the stakes at the highest at last year’s World Tour Finals. The team can (and will) improve with more time together. Claudia Scampoli and Margherita Bianchin, who had tremendous success in lower-level international events last year, should have more opportunities to aim higher in 2022 as well.

Young Player/Team to Watch: Cottafava seems to have been placed in the perfect position to succeed in 2022. An explosive left-handed defender, he’ll have in Nicolai not only an experienced and accomplished veteran, but also an exceptional setter and a player who can win games with his serving and blocking. It seems like an excellent combination and Cottafava should continue improving after a solid 2021 season.

Latvia

Latvia was another country to have a solid year in 2021 as the nation was the only to have teams in both genders in the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics. The women’s duo of Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka continues together and should once again compete with the best in the world. The 2020 U20 European champions Anete Namike and Varvara Brailko also remain as partners and should see even more improvement this season.

The men went a different route with Tokyo semifinalists Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs going separate ways after they arrived from Japan. Plavins teamed with 23-year-old Mihails Samoilovs but had knee surgery and will be sidelined for a while. During this period, Tocs will pair with Mihails until he makes a decision regarding his new partner. Veterans Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins have digested the frustration of not qualifying to Tokyo and are set to start their tenth season as teammates.

Young Player/Team to Watch: Namike and Brailko are still very young at 19 but they showed some interesting talent in age-group and senior events over the last few years. They have great role models to follow in Graudina and Kravcenoka and, as Latvian beach volleyball progresses as a whole, are also poised for significant improvement.

 

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