Lausanne, Switzerland, June 25, 2016 — Enjoying a one-week break from international competition, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) have now moved into the final events on the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour for final Olympic preparations as well as the remaining stops on the international tour. The 2016 FIVB World Tour continues this week in Croatia at the double-gender $800,000 Swatch FIVB Poreč Major.
Playing in Croatia for the only time this year following the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam two weeks ago in Poland, there are 65 men’s teams from 24 countries and 52 women’s teams from 22 countries in Croatia for the Swatch FIVB Poreč Major.
The Swatch FIVB Poreč Major starts Monday and concludes on Sunday. It is the 18th men’s event of the season and 15th women’s event on the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour that started with three events at the end of 2015.
POREC SCHEDULEThe Swatch FIVB Poreč Major will have 32 main draw teams per gender. The format is the same for each gender with both the women and the men staring on Tuesday.
Qualifying tournaments will be held on Tuesday for women and Tuesday and Wednesday for men to determine the final eight teams for each 32-team main draw. On Wednesday and Thursday for women and Thursday and Friday for men, teams will be split into eight, four-team pools to play three matches over the two days for each gender. The top three teams in the eight pools (24 total teams) will advance from pool play to the single-elimination knockout rounds.
On Friday for women and Saturday for men, there will play three rounds of eliminations.
On Saturday for women and Sunday for men at the Swatch FIVB Poreč Major, the semifinals and medal matches will be held. The awarding ceremonies will follow the gold medal match for each gender.
As needed, country quota playoff matches will be played on Monday for both genders to determine the final teams in their respective qualification tournaments.
SWATCH FIVB MAJOR SERIES
The Swatch FIVB Major Series portion of the 2016 FIVB World Tour features four events. Already played were events in Hamburg, Germany and Olsztyn, Poland. After this week’s Swatch FIVB Poreč Major, the other two tournaments in this group of four will be held in Switzerland (Gstaad, July 5-10) and in Austria (Klagenfurt, July 27-31).
As part of the second season of the sponsor partnership, the Swatch FIVB Beach Volleyball Season Final will also be held again. With the location to be announced, the finale will be held on Sept. 13-18. The event will again feature the top eight teams and two wildcards for each gender from the 2016 FIVB World Tour. This illustrious group will compete for a total purse of $500,000 with the winning men and women’s tandems receiving $100,000 each.
CROATIA’S FIVB HISTORY
While this will be the second straight season in Poreč, the FIVB World Tour also stopped in Croatia for four men’s only events in Zagreb in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Croatia has now hosted six FIVB World Tour events through 2015, (five men and one women). In the men’s medal count through five events, Brazil and the United States are tied with three each, the Netherlands has two medals and with one medal each are Canada, China, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Switzerland. After one FIVB World Tour women’s event held in Croatia through 2015, Australia, Brazil and Canada lead the medal parade total with one medal each.
Winning the gold medals last year in Poreč were the teams of Netherlands’ Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen for the men and for the women was Brazil’s Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca. Both teams are heading to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and both are back to defend their Poreč titles.
WELCOME TO POREC
Poreč is a town and municipality on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula, in Istia County, Croatia. Its major landmark is the 6th century Euphrasian Basilica, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997.
Poreč is almost 2,000 years old, and is set around a harbor protected from the sea by the small island of Saint Nicholas/San Nicolo. The town's population of approximately 12,000 resides mostly on the outskirts, while the wider Poreč area has a population of approximately 17,000 inhabitants.
The municipal area covers 142 square kilometers (55 sq mi), with the 37 kilometers (23 miles) long shoreline stretching from the Mirna River near Novigrad to Funtana and Vrsar in the south. Ever since the 1970s, the coast of Poreč has been the most visited tourist destination in Croatia.
TOP SEEDS
Olympians abound as most of the world’s best beach volleyball teams are entered in this week’s Swatch FIVB Poreč Major in Croatia.
The preliminary top-seeded men’s teams for the Swatch FIVB Poreč Major are Brazil’s top-seeded Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Netherlands’ second-seeded Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst, USA’s third-seeded Phil Dalhausser/Nick Lucena, Netherland’s fourth-seeded Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen and Brazil’s fifth-seeded Pedro Solberg/Evandro Goncalves.
The second-five preliminary men’s pre-seeds competing in the Swatch FIVB Poreč Major are USA’s sixth-seeded Jake Gibb/Casey Patterson, Austria’s seventh-seeded Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst, Spain’s eighth-seeded Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira, Italy’s ninth-seeded Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo and Poland’s 10th-seeded Bartosz Losiak/Piotr Kantor.
For the Swatch FIVB Poreč Major, the top preliminary pre-seeded women’s teams are, Brazil’s top-seeded Larissa Franca/Talita Antunes, Brazil’s second-seeded Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas, Canada’s third-seeded Sarah Pavan/Heather Bansley, Germany’s fourth-seeded Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst and Brazil’s fifth-seeded Juliana Felisberta/Taiana Lima.
The second-five preliminary pre-seeded women’s team competing in the Swatch FIVB Poreč Major are Germany’s sixth-seeded Karla Borger/Britta Buthe,Netherlands’ seventh-seeded Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel, Australia’s eighth-seeded Louise Bawden/Taliqua Clancy, USA’s ninth-seeded Lauren Fendrick/Brooke Sweat and Switzerland’s 10th-seeded Joana Heidrich/Nadine Zumkehr.
SWATCH FIVB POREC MAJOR PURSE/POINTS
The gold medal teams at the Swatch FIVB Poreč Major will split $57,000 and 800 points, the silver $43,000 and 720 points, the bronze $32,000 and 640 points and fourth place $24,000 and 560 points.
TEAM CROATIA
As the host nation for the Swatch FIVB Poreč Major, Croatia has two men’s teams pre-seeded into the men’s main draw for this event and four on the reserve list for the qualification tournament. Croatia’s men’s main draw teams are Kresimir Karaula/Marin Jercic and Ivan Zeljkovic/Filip Silic..
Croatia’s men’s reserve teams for this event are Ivan Cosic/Mate Glaurdic, Ivan Djordjevic/Niksa Dellorco, Marko Matic/Marko Vujinovic and Josip Pribanic/Matej Mudrovcic.
As the host nation for the Swatch FIVB Poreč Major, Croatia has three women’s teams pre-seeded into the women’s main draw for this event along with one team in the women’s qualification tournament. Croatia’s confirmed women’s main draw teams are Jurja Vlasic/Dina Becic, Sara Radanovic/Samanta Fabris and Maja Rosko/Nikolina Jelic..
Entered in the women’s qualification tournament from Croatia is the team of Stela Vukasovic/Nikolina Klaric.
ON THE HORIZON
Qualification on the FIVB Olympic Rankings for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour is now complete. In all, Brazil is hosting five international events in 2016. In addition to Maceió, Rio, Vitoria and Fortaleza, the Brazil events will be capped with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Aug. 6-18).
After the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam two weeks ago, the remaining 2016 FIVB World Tour events prior to the Rio Olympics will be three events on the Swatch FIVB Major Series portion of the 2016 FIVB World Tour. They start with this week’s Swatch FIVB Porec Major Series in Croatia (June 28-July 3), followed by the Swatch FIVB Gstaad Major Series in Switzerland (July 5-9) and the Swatch FIVB Klagenfurt Major Series in Austria (July 26-31).
Following the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, there are three more events scheduled on the 2016 FIVB World Tour calendar. First event scheduled is FIVB Long Beach Grand Slam (Aug. 23-28), the Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals (Sept. 13-18, location TBA) and the FIVB Puerto Vallarta Open in Mexico (Oct. 11-16). All three are double-gender events.
GROWING HISTORY
The Swatch FIVB Poreč Major in Croatia will be the 347th men’s tournament since the FIVB began play in 1987 and the 308th 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 features a purse of US$8.8 million with a season that extends from last October to this October, competing at 23 venues in 13 countries. The schedule includes four FIVB Grand Slams, four Swatch FIVB Major Series events, 14 FIVB Opens and the special Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals. 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 through June 13, 2016 counted 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. Brazil also was awarded two additional spots in the field of 24, one in each gender as the host nation and the other as winning both the men and women’s gold medals in the 2015 FIVB World Championships in the Netherlands. With qualifying through the FIVB World Tour completed, the official announcement of teams and drawing of pool assignment will be held at the Swatch Gstaad Major Series.
FIVB WORLD TOUR PURSES
The four FIVB Grand Slam and four 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.