Year in Review: Europe calls the shots on the World Tour

The 2021 international beach volleyball season felt like a restart for the sport after fans and players were deprived of the World Tour’s most exciting and important tournaments the year before. And when things got closer to normal, something became clear – Europe continues to dominate the sport at the global level.

The continent was instrumental in the resumption of international competition this year as it hosted far more events than any other region of the world with 18 of the 25 men’s and 19 of the 25 women’s tournaments played in 2021 being held in Europe, including the World Tour Finals. Several of those were one-stars, ran by in conjunction by the CEV and local promoters.

European players were just as successful on the court as event organizers were out of them as teams from the continent entirely dominated the season, which started in Doha, Qatar, in February, and ended in Itapema, Brazil, in November. From the 150 medals in play during those ten months, 94 went to European teams, with 24 countries from the continent earning at least one podium appearance.

The continent’s men’s teams were in absolute top form as they collected 54 out of 75 potential medals and were on the podium in each of the 25 events of the year. In 19 occasions, Europeans took gold, but they also secured 16 silver and 19 bronze medals during the season.

The reigning Olympic champions, Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sørum were the winners of the season’s top event, the World Tour Finals in Sardinia, Italy, which had European duos occupying all four semifinal spots. The Vikings also claimed gold medals in the first two four-star events of the Cancun Hub, in Mexico, back in April.

Europe went to win of the six other four-stars held in the season, with Czechs Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner prevailing in Doha, Polish Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak topping the podium in Sochi, the Netherlands’ Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen triumphing in Ostrava and fellow Dutch Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot succeeding in Gstaad.

Europeans also left their marks in the events ranging from one to three-stars, snapping 13 out of the 16 gold medals in play in those tournaments. Finish Jyrki Nurminen and Santeri Siren, with two golds and a bronze, and Portuguese Hugo Campos and Joao Pedrosa, with two silver and a bronze, were particularly successful in that category.

Among the women, Europeans didn’t get to win a four-star event in 2021 but they took home the biggest prize of the year with the victory of German veterans Julia Sude and Karla Borger in the World Tour Finals.

The overall medal count for Europeans in the season ended at 40, with ten golds, 15 silvers and 15 bronze. Nadezda Makroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina formed the most consistent European female team in the top events as the Russians took home a silver from Cancun and a bronze from Sochi.

In the 1-3-star events, there were nine European golds in 16 events. Italy was especially strong in that category, with Sara Breidenbach/Chiara They winning two golds and Claudia Scampoli/Margherita Bianchin adding another one, besides a bronze. The two teams mixed up for an event in Sofia and ended up with a pair of medals with They/Bianchin taking silver and Scampoli/Breidenbach collecting bronze.

Ukrainians Anhelina Khmil and Tetiana Lazarenko, with a gold and three bronze, and Czechs Marie-Sara Stocholova and Martina Williams, with a gold and a silver, also significantly contributed to the European success.