Lausanne, Switzerland, May 26, 2014 — Remaining in Europe for the next eight weeks, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) switches to another country for its 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour. This week the tour will move to Russia for the double-gender US$150,000 FIVB Anapa Open.
After two season-opening tournaments in China, and one in Mexico, (all double-gender) and last week’s women’s only event in the Czech Republic, the FIVB World Tour returns to Russia for the 14th time for men and the 12th time for a women’s tournament. Returning for the second straight year to Anapa, this week’s tournament will be held at the Volley Grad at the Beach Volleyball Center.
The fourth of 10 FIVB Open events in 2014, the FIVB Anapa Open has women’s action running from Tuesday through Saturday and men’s competition from Wednesday through Sunday. The tournament format has a one-day qualification tournament on Tuesday for women and Wednesday for men to determine the final eight spots in each gender’s 32-team main draw tournaments followed by round-robin pool play and a single-elimination bracket for the final 24 teams. The women’s semifinals and medal matches will be held Sunday on the purpose-built Volley Grad at the Beach Volleyball Center in Anapa.
The FIVB World Tour is back in Anapa after hosting a double-gender FIVB Open event last year as well. After this week’s tournament, the FIVB World Tour will resume June 11-15 again in Russia at the $800,000 FIVB Moscow Grand Slam. Next week the CEV championship will be held for European teams in Cagliari, Italy on June 3-8.
The field for the 2014 FIVB Anapa Open includes 59 men’s teams from 28 countries and 39 women’s teams from 19 countries selected by their national federations.
TEAM RUSSIA
As the host nation, Russia has three teams automatically pre-seeded into the main draw in both genders along with one wild card appointment in each gender. For the women, the Russian teams are Anna Gorbunova/Ksenia Dabizha, Daria Rudykh/Nadezda Makroguzova, Ekaterina Syrtseva/Alexandra Shiryaeva Moiseeva and Evgeniya Ukolova/Maria Prokopeva. For the men, the Russian teams in the main draw are Ilya Leshukov/Aleksander Margiev, Alexey Pastukhov/Ruslan Bykanov, Serguey Prokopyev/Grigoriy Goncharov and Konstantin Semenov/Viacheslav Krasilnikov.
Additionally, Russia has one team in each gender’s qualification tournament – Olga Motrich/Yulia Abalakina for the women and Dmitri Barsouk/Yury Bogatov in the men’s qualifier.
FIVB WORLD TOUR LEADERS
After just three men’s and four women’s events the top three FIVB World Tour point leaders and the top three FIVB World Tour money leaders come five countries-Brazil, China, Italy, Germany and Latvia.
The men’s point leaders are Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins with 1570 points and one gold medal while second is Italy’s Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai with 1,300 points and two gold medals while third is Brazil’s Emanuel Rego/Pedro Salgado with 860 points. For the men’s money leaders on top is Italy’s Lupo/Nicolai with $68,000 following by Latvia’s Samoilovs/J. Smedins with $58,500 and third is Germany’s Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik with $32,000.
The women’s point leaders are Brazil’s Juliana Felisberta/Maria Antonelli with 1,560 points while second is Germany’s Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst with 1,440 and third is a tie between Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas and China’s Fan Wang/Yuan Yue, both with 1,380 points. For the money leaders, on top is Germany’s Ludwig/Walkenhorst with $65,000 with China’s Wang/Yue second with $49,175 and Brazil’s Bednarczuk/Seixas third with $45,000.
ANAPA REWIND
Last year in Anapa, Russia won both the men and women’s gold and bronze medals while Germany won the silver medal in each gender.
Men’s champion duo in Anapa last year was Russia’s Yaroslav Koshkarev/Konstantin Semenov while women’s champion team was Russia’s Ekaterina Khomyakova/Evgeniya Ukolova.
Anapa is the third Russian city to host a FIVB beach volleyball international event joining Moscow and St. Petersburg. Also part of the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam will be held June 11-15.
THIS IS ANAPA
Anapa is a town in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located on the northern coast of the Black Sea near the Sea of Azov. Anapa is a tourist destination with a permanent population of just over 60,000 people. Anapa, like the other Black Sea coast resorts, has a superb sunny summer climate. Anapa has beautiful, mostly sandy beaches.
FIVB GOLD
The gold medal teams in the FIVB Anapa Open will each split $11,000, the silver $8,000, the bronze $6,000 and fourth place $4,500. The women’s medal matches will be held on Saturday with the men’s medal matches concluding the event on Sunday.
The FIVB Anapa Open will be the 301st FIVB men’s tournament since its first event in 1987 and the 265th FIVB women’s tournament since FIVB began women’s competitions in 1992.
BUSY SLATE
After Anapa, the FIVB World Tour continues its seven-event swing through Europe starting with this week’s FIVB Anapa Open in Russia. After a one-week break (European teams will be playing in the CEV Championship in Cagliari, Italy), there are five more double-gender FIVB Grand Slams over six weeks with the FIVB Moscow Grand Slam in Russia (June 11-15), the FIVB Berlin Grand Slam in Germany (June 17-22), the FIVB Stavanger Grand Slam in Norway (June 24-28), the FIVB Gstaad Grand Slam in Switzerland (July 8-13) and finally the FIVB Transavia Grand Slam played in four different cities in the Netherlands (July 15-20) but based in The Hague.
The FIVB Grand Slams in Moscow, Berlin, Stavanger and Gstaad have purses of $800,000 each while the event in the Netherlands has an FIVB Grand Slam-record purse of $1 million.
NET TIME
Based in Lausanne, Switzerland as the international governing body for the Olympic sports of Beach Volleyball and Volleyball, the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar features a record purse of US$10.2 million with a season that extends from late April to mid-December competing at 21 venues in 18 countries. This year’s FIVB World Tour includes a record 10 FIVB Grand Slam events, the inaugural Grand Slam Finale and 10 FIVB Open Tournaments throughout the world, helping expand the door for development of the sport even further.
The FIVB Grand Slam competitions, all double-gender, have eight with $800,000 in total purses while both The Hague, Netherlands and the Long Beach, Calif., USA event will have $1 million each in prize money, the most in FIVB Grand Slam history.
The 10 FIVB Open tournaments in 2014, seven double-gender, two men only and two women only, will have $150,000 total purses for the double gender events and $75,000 for the single-gender competitions.
NEXT GEN
As part of the initiatives of FIVB President Dr Ary S. Graça F° and his leadership team, the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball international calendar also includes a record four age-group FIVB World Championships along with the 2014 Nanjing (China) Youth Olympic Games (Aug. 17-27). The FIVB Beach Volleyball U17 World Championships (Acapulco, Mexico, July 15-20) will debut this year while the U23 FIVB World Championships (Myslowice, Poland, June 10-15) debuted in 2013. This year will mark the 14th annual U21 FIVB World Championships (Larnaka, Cyprus, July 23-27) and the 13th annual U19 FIVB World Championships (Porto, Portugal, July 29-Aug. 3).