FIVB Beach World Championships
- Danube Island; Vienna, Austria
- July 28 – August 6, 2017
The Beach Volleyball World Championships are coming to Vienna, Austria, July 28 to August 6 and the country is embracing the hype.
Danube Island will act at the host venue for 48 men’s and 48 women’s teams, vying for the title.
With 208 matches dotting the slate, a $1 million purse on the line and night life in the off hours to boot, it is not hard to see why all eyes will be on the site in late July.
The FIVB and Vienna are talking up the championships as the next major beach volleyball event, now that the 2016 Rio Olympics have come and gone.
One thing that is promised is a new women’s champion as Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk and Barbara Seixas are out after splitting up following their runner-up finish at the 2016 Olympics.
Austria was guaranteed two entries on the men’s and women’s sides as the host country. The next 23 teams were selected based on FIVB entry ranking points, following the FIVB World Tour stop in Moscow.
Americans Sara Hughes/Kelly Claes, April Ross/Lauren Fendrick and Summer Ross/Brooke Sweat were on the list alongside four Brazilian teams.
Germany’s Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst , which took Olympic gold, are in the field, as are fourth place finishers Larisssa Franca/Talita Altunes of Brazil, which lost the Olympic bronze to (April) Ross and Kerri Walsh Jennings.
Walsh Jennings will be playing alongside 2008 Olympian Nicole Branagh after the pair grabbed one of the four NORCECA nominations. Brittany Hochevar/Emily Day and Emily Stockman/Kimberly DiCello also will vie for the championship.
The full list of women’s entries is here.
On the men’s side, Olympians abound as gold medalists and 2015 world champs Alison Cerutti / Bruno Schmidt from Brazil, silver medalists Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo from Italy and bronze medalists Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen from the Netherlands all are in the field by way of the world rankings. Alison/Bruno ranked fourth and are one of four Brazilian teams among the FIVB rankings entries. Brouwer/Meeuwsen rank seventh, while Lupo/Nicolai are 18th.
For the Americans, Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena, which made the Olympic quarterfinals, headline the entry list as the No. 1 team in the world rankings. Four other men’s teams from the United States are in the championships field: Theo Brunner/Casey Patterson, Ryan Doherty/John Hyden, Jake Gibb/Taylor Crabb and Sean Rosenthal/Travis Crabb.
The full list of men’s entries is here.
Leave a Reply