The Year Ahead: World Championship returns to Rome as Europeans eye medals

It has become a tradition. From June 7-19, Europe will host the Beach Volleyball World Championship for a ninth-straight time as the Italian capital of Rome is set to become the first to stage the event twice.

The last time the tournament wasn’t held in Europe was back in 2003 and the continent is by far the most common destination for the biggest event of international beach volleyball outside of the Olympics, having hosted ten of the 12 previous editions.

The ‘Eternal City’ has proved to be a more-than-ideal location for the sport, with the venue set at the iconic Foro Italico having previously hosted the 2011 World Championship and the 2019 World Tour Finals. The return of the World Championship to Rome was set to happen exactly a decade after its first visit, but the tournament was postponed for a year because of the global pandemic.

European teams have enjoyed a great deal of success in the tournament in the most recent editions as in three of the last four occasions, the continent took home a full set of medals, achieving its best result in the World Championship.

The 2019 edition, in Hamburg, was historic for European men as for the first-time ever the continent celebrated a podium completely filled by teams from the continent with bronze medalists Anders Mol and Christian Sørum of Norway and silver medalists Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler of Germany flanking champions Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov of Russia.

The defending champions will make an attempt to defend their title in Rome, where they won the 2019 World Tour Finals, while the Beach Volley Vikings will be looking for the missing jewel on their crown after winning the Tokyo Olympics and securing their fourth-straight EuroBeachVolley title in 2021.

Other teams from the continent with positive expectations about medals will be Dutch Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen, the 2003 world champions, and Stefan Boermans/Yorick de Groot, who had a career year in 2021. The host country should also have a strong trio of contenders in Daniele Lupo/Alex Ranghieri, Paolo Nicolai/Samuele Cottafava and Adrian Carambula/Enrico Rossi.

The only European female victory in the World Championship came by the hands of Germans Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst, who won in Vienna, in 2017. Ludwig will sit out of this year’s edition as she’s expecting her second baby and Walkenhorst is working her way up in the rankings after missing a couple of seasons, but the continent should still be hopeful of a good participation this coming summer in Rome.

Switzerland seems very well-positioned to contend as the country currently features two of the best teams in the world in Tokyo Olympic bronze medalists Joana Heidrich and Anouk Vergé-Dépré and reigning EuroBeachVolley champions Nina Betschart and Tanja Hüberli.

Latvians Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka, who made it to the semifinals of both the Tokyo Games and the EuroBeachVolley in 2021, Dutch Raisa Schoon and Katja Stam, who made it to the Olympics and took silver in Vienna, and Germans Karla Borger, a World Championship silver medalist in 2013, and Julia Sude are some others who should enter the tournaments with a podium appearance in their sights.

The 12-day World Championship will be the biggest event of the international season in 2022 and will feature 48 teams in each gender.