Men’s Road to Rio creates a lot of ifs, ands & buts

Lausanne, Switzerland, May 9, 2016 - If it happens and the teams from Germany appear to play as expected, it will be the “Olympic showcase” in Turkey this week for the US$150,000 Antalya Open with a lot of “if’s and buts” being used to discuss the scenarios on the “Road to Rio”.

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With Germans Jonathan Erdmann and Kay Matysik meeting the qualification requirement of participating in at least 12 FIVB World Tour events since the start of the process this past week at the Sochi Open in Russia, the competition for the 15th and final spot from the international circuit is presently a fight between two teams from the European country.

Markus Bockermann and Lars Fluggen are currently No. 15 with 4,400 points for their best 12 finishes while Erdmann and Matysik are 170 points behind with 4,230 points.  With Fluggen missing the last three FIVB World Tour events after being injured early last month in a Qatar Open semi-final, Bockermann can only watch as Erdmann and Matysik have racked up points with a second-place in China (Fuzhou) and the Sochi ninth.

With both teams entered in the last four FIVB World Tour qualifying events in Turkey, the United States (Cincinnati), Russia (Moscow) and Germany (Hamburg), there is a good chance the two could meet along the way.  With Erdmann and Matysik in their eighth season of participating on the FIVB World Tour together, the pair has never played Bockermann and Fluggen in a FIVB or CEV event.  Fluggen did defeat Erdmann and Matysik once with a different partner (Sebastian Dollinger) at a 2014 FIVB event in The Hague.

“All these tournaments are important now,” said Erdmann Monday as he is preparing for this week’s event in Antalya.  “We are in a good place as a team, so we feel good after posting good finishes in both Fortaleza (second) and Sochi (ninth) to meet the requirement of playing in 12 events.  We had a very good match with the Italians (Daniele Lupo and Paola Nicolai) but lost in three sets in Sochi.  The Italians went on to win the gold medal.  Now, it is up to us.”

In the longest men's match in the Sochi Open, Lupo and Nicolai posted a 2-1 (21-19, 22-24, 15-12) win in 56 minutes over Erdmann and Matysik.  The Italians are No. 10 on the on the Rio ranking list with 4,960 points for their best 12 finishes.

With the point difference so close between the two German teams, Erdmann and Matysik can move ahead of Bockermann and Fluggen this week with a quarter-final finish provided that their compatriots don’t do the same.  “It is so close, so each match becomes crucial,” Erdmann added.

FIVB WORLD TOUR OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION

To qualify for the Olympics, a team must compete together in at least 12 FIVB World Tour events and/or recognized Continental championships from January 2015 through June 13, 2016.  A team’s best 12 finishes will be used to determine a tandem’s ranking.

Five pairs for each gender’s Olympic competition will qualify via Continental Cup action where each FIVB confederation is guaranteed a berth in the Rio 2016 Summer Games.  The last qualifying event will be July 6-10 when Russia hosts the FIVB World Continental Cup Olympic Qualification Tournament in Sochi.  The top two tandems from each gender from the Continental Cup qualifier will earn the last two pairs in the 24-team Olympic competitions.

BRAZILIAN BERTHS SECURED

Brazil has already qualified two teams in each gender’s competition for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.  Two pairs from the South American country captured the gold medals at the 2015 FIVB World Championships last July in The Hague (Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt and Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas) to secure Copacabana berths.  Being the host of the Rio Summer Games, Brazil was also guaranteed two teams in the 24-team men’s and women’s fields (Evandro Goncalves/Pedro Solberg and Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca).

With all that said, Brazilian pairs cannot qualify another team for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games through the FIVB World Tour.  Therefore, the ranking list excludes Brazilians in the ranking order as Talita/Larissa (6,940) and Agatha/Barbara (6,870) rank 1-2 on the women’s provisional list.  Alison/Bruno (7,050 points) and Evandro Pedro (6,130) are the top two teams on the men’s provisional points list for Rio.

UPCOMING SCHEDULE

The last four FIVB World Tour stops during the qualifying process for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games are double gender tournaments highlighted by US$800,000 FIVB World Tour Grand Slam stop in Moscow followed by the newly-named Hamburg Major.

•    May 10-15 - Antalya (Turkey) Open
•    May 17-22 - Cincinnati (United States) Open
•    May 24-29 - Moscow (Russia) Grand Slam
•    June 7-12 - Hamburg (Germany) Major