Lausanne, Switzerland, April 18, 2016 — Following the second of eight straight weeks of events including three in Asia, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) is in the midst of the qualifying process for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games through the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour.
The string of eight consecutive events continues in China Tuesday with the double-gender $150,000 FIVB Fuzhou Open. It is the third tournament in the stretch of eight straight events. Next week the FIVB World Tour returns to Brazil for the fourth time this season for the double-gender $150,000 Fortaleza Open.
Remaining in China following last week’s FIVB Xiamen Open, there are 54 men’s teams from 24 countries and 52 women’s teams from 23 countries in China for the FIVB Fuzhou Open. This is the fourth consecutive year that Fuzhou has hosted a double-gender FIVB World Tour event.
The double-gender $150,000 FIVB uzhou Open starts Tuesday and concludes on Sunday. It is the 10th men’s event of the season and seventh women’s event on the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour that started with three events at the end of 2015. The FIVB Fuzhou Open will be played at Miamjiang Riverside Park.
FUZHOU SCHEDULE
The FIVB Fuzhou Open is a double-gender event with 32 main draw teams per gender. The format is the same for each gender with the schedule having the men start a day earlier and finish a day before the women. For the men, a qualification tournament on Tuesday will be held to determine the final eight spots in the 32-team main draw for each gender followed by two days of round robin pool play. The top three teams in the eight pools (24 total teams) will advance from pool play to the single-elimination knockout rounds. Pool play will be held on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday will be the final single elimination rounds and the quarterfinals with the semifinals and men’s medal matches on Saturday.
For the women, their qualification tournament will be held on Wednesday, following by pool play on Thursday and Friday, single-elimination rounds through the quarterfinals on Saturday with the women’s semifinals and medal matches on Sunday.
As needed, country quota playoff matches will be played on Monday for men and Tuesday for women to determine the final teams in their respective qualification tournaments on Tuesday and Wednesday.
CHINA’S FIVB HISTORY
China has hosted 55 FIVB World Tour events through last week in Xiamen, including 23 men’s and 32 women’s tournaments. Host country China has won 19 previous medals on its country’s soil, including two men’s silver medals, six women’s gold medals, seven women’s silver medals, and five women’s bronze medals.
In the 23 FIVB men’s events through last week, Brazil has the most men’s medals with 24, followed by Germany with nine and the United States with nine each, Netherlands with five, Spain with four, Switzerland with three, China, France and Latvia with two each and with one each men’s medal in China have been Argentina, Austria, Mexico and Russia.
Through 32 FIVB women’s events in China through last week’s event, Brazil leads the medals race with 29 total followed by the United States with 24, China with 17, Germany with seven, Australia and Switzerland with four each, Austria and Netherlands with three each, and with one each women’s medals in China are Argentina, Canada, Italy, Norway and Spain.
WELCOME TO FUZHOU
Fuzhou is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian province in China Along with the many counties ofNingde, those, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute the Mindong linguistic and cultural area.
Fuzhou's core counties lie on the north (left) bank of the estuary of Fujian's largest river, the Min River. All along its northern border lies Ningde, and Ningde's Gutian County lies upriver. Fuzhou's counties south of the Min border on Putian, Quanzhou, Sanming and Nanping prefectures. Its population is nearly 7.2 million, of whom 4.5 million inhabitants are urban representing around 61.95%, while rural population is at nearly 2.8 million representing around 38 percent.
TOP SEEDS
Olympians and Olympic hopefuls abound as many of the world’s best beach volleyball teams are entered in the FIVB Fuzhou Open.
The top-seeded preliminary men’s teams for the FIVB Fuzhou Open are USA’s top-seeded Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena, Canada’s second-seeded Ben Saxton/Chaim Schalk, Latvia’s third-seeded Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins, Russia’s fourth-seeded Konstantin Semenov/Viacheslay Krasilnikov and USA’s fifh-seeded John Hyden/Tri Bourne.
The second-five preliminary men’s pre-seeds competing in FIVB Fuzhou Open are Italy’s sixth-seeded Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo, Spain’s seventh-seeded Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera, Mexico’s eighth-seeded Juan Virgen/Lombardo Ontiveros, Canada’s ninth-seeded Josh Binstock/Sam Schachter and Chile’s 10th-seeded cousins Esteban Grimalt/Marco Grimalt.
For the FIVB Fuzhou Open, the top preliminary pre-seeded women’s teams are USA’s top-seeded April Ross/Kerri Walsh Jennings, Germany’s second-seeded Karla Borger/Britta Buthe, USA’s third-seeded Brooke Sweat/Lauren Fendrick, Italy’s fourth-seeded Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth and Canada’s fifth-seeded defending FIVB Fuzhou champions Jamie Lynn Broder/Kristina Valjas.
The second-five preliminary pre-seeded women’s team competing in Fuzhou are Switzerland’s sixth-seeded Isabellle Forrer/Anouk Vergé-Dépré, Argentina’s seventh-seeded Ana Gallay/Georgina Klug, Spain’s eighth-seeded Liliana Fernandez/Elsa Baquerizo, Switzerland’s ninth-seeded Joana Heidrich/Nadine Zumkehr, USA’s 10th-seeded Emily Day/Jennifer Kessy.
FIVB FUZHOU OPEN PURSE/POINTS
The gold medal teams at the FIVB Fuzhou Open will split $11,000 and 500 points, the silver $8,000 and 450 points, the bronze $6,000 400 points and fourth place $4,500 and 450 points.
TEAM CHINA
As the host nation for the FIVB Fuzhou Open, China has three men’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw for this event and one team in the qualification tournament. China’s men’s main draw teams are 22nd-seeded Zhouxin Li/Jian Li, 23rd-seeded Likejiang Ha/Jian Bao and 24th seeded Cheng Chen/Lizeng Zhang.
Entered in the men’s qualification tournament from China is Wuqin Lin/Zequan Lu.
As the host nation for the FIVB Fuzhou Open, China has three women’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw for this event and three teams in the qualification tournament. China’s women’s main draw teams are 18th-seeded Chen Xue/Xinyi Xia, 19th-seeded Fan Wang/Yuan Yue and 23rd-seeded Chun Xia Chen/Ningya Tang.
Entered in the women’s qualification tournament in Fuzhou from China are Xinxin Wang/Jingiing Ding, Lingdi Zhu/Jiaxi Wang and Jiali Chen/Jiaomei Li..
ON THE HORIZON
With placement points for the FIVB Olympic Rankings for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in full swing, the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour is in the midst of eight events over eight straight weeks through the end of May. In all, Brazil is hosting five international events in 2016. In addition to Maceió, Rio and Vitória will be the FIVB Fortaleza Open (April 26-May 1) and the Brazil events conclude with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Aug. 6-18).
The FIVB World Tour has three events in Asia that started with the men’s only FIVB Qatar Open in Doha (April 4-8), continued with last week’s double gender FIVB Xiamen Open (April 12-16) in China and concludes with the FIVB Fuzhou Open (April 19-23) in China before returning to Brazil for the FIVB Fortaleza Open (April 26-May 1).
GROWING HISTORY
The FIVB Fuzhou Open in China will be the 339th men’s tournament since the FIVB began play in 1987 and the 300th FIVB women’s tournament since their competition started in 1992.
FIVB 2016
Based in Lausanne, Switzerland as the international governing body for the Olympic sports of Beach Volleyball and Volleyball, the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball calendar featured a purse of US$8.8 million with a season that extended from last October to this October, competing at 23 venues in 13 countries. The schedule includes five FIVB Grand Slams, three Swatch FIVB Major Series events, 14 FIVB Opens and the special Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals in the United States. The showcase event will be the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil (Aug. 6-18).
The 2015 portion of the 2016 FIVB World Tour calendar started in October in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and included two more open events prior to the remainder of the schedule resuming at the FIVB Kish Island Open in Iran in February.
ROAD TO RIO
The Olympic qualification process began in 2015 with all FIVB World Tour events (except the Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals) in 2015 up until June 13, 2016 counting towards the Olympic Ranking in order to determine 15 spots for each gender that will take part in each 24-team field in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on Copacabana Beach in Brazil in August. Counting the FIVB Xiamen Open, nine men’s and eight women’s events remain on the Olympic qualifying calendar for the FIVB World Tour.
FIVB WORLD TOUR PURSES
The five FIVB Grand Slam and three Swatch FIVB Major Series competitions in 2016, all double-gender, each have $800,000 in total purses. The total of $500,000 will be the purse for the Swatch FIVB World Tour Season Final which will feature the top eight teams in each gender and two wild card teams.
The 14 FIVB Open tournaments on 2016 calendar, 11 double-gender, and three men’s only, have $150,000 total purses for the double gender events and $75,000 for the single-gender competitions.
The gold medal teams in each gender at FIVB Grand Slam and Swatch FIVB Major Series events split $57,000, the silver $43,000, the bronze $32,000 and fourth place $24,000. The gold medal teams in each gender at FIVB Open tournaments each split $11,000, the silver $8,000, the bronze $6,000 and fourth place $4,500.
FIVB EVENT FORMAT
Implemented in 2013, the format of all the FIVB Beach Volleyball international tournaments – whether FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam or FIVB Beach Volleyball Open – are the same, featuring pool play followed by single elimination knockout rounds. Country Quota playoffs returned as needed in 2015 to determine the final teams for the qualification tournament.