Lausanne, Switzerland, June 13, 2016 — With qualifying completed for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) will now see the focus shift on the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour to final Olympic preparations and the remaining stops on the international tour. The 2016 FIVB World Tour continues this week in Poland at the double-gender $800,000 FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam.
Playing in Poland for the only time this year following last week’s smart FIVB Hamburg Major in Germany, there are 58 men’s teams from 25 countries and 46 women’s teams from 20 countries in Poland for the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam.
The double-gender $800,000 FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam starts Monday and concludes on Sunday. It is the 17th men’s event of the season and 14th women’s event on the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour that started with three events at the end of 2015.
OLSZTYN SCHEDULE
The FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam will have 32 main draw teams per gender. The format is the same for each gender with the women starting on Tuesday and the men on Wednesday.
Qualifying tournaments will be held on Tuesday for women 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, 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 women and Tuesday for men to determine the final teams in their respective qualification tournaments.
POLAND’S FIVB HISTORY
Through the 2015 event, Poland has hosted a total of 26 FIVB World Tour events (14 men, 12 women) over a 12-year period with Brazil leading the medal count in both genders. The four Polish sites of FIVB international events have been Myslowice (two men, two women), Olsztyn (one men, one women), Stare Jablonki (11 men, seven women) and Warsaw (two women).
In the men’s totals after 14 events, Brazil has 15 medals, followed by the USA with eight, Germany with five each, Spain with three, Latvia with two and with one men’s medal each in Poland are Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Switzerland.
After 12 FIVB World Tour women’s events held in Poland through 2015, Brazil leads the medal parade with 15 total medals followed by China and Germany with five each, USA with four, Italy and the Netherlands with two each and with one women’s medal each in Poland are Australia, Norway and Poland.
In last year’s first FIVB event held in Olsztyn, the men’s podium included Brazil’s Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt (gold), USA’s Jake Gibb/Casey Patterson (silver) and Canada’s Chaim Schalk/Ben Saxton (bronze. The women’s FIVB podium in Olsztyn included Brazil’s Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca (gold), Netherlands’ Madelein Meppelink/Marleen van Iersel (silver) and Poland’s Kinga Kolosinska/Monika Brzostek (bronze).
WELCOME TO OLSZTYN
Olsztyn is one of the most important cities in Poland. It is located at the North eastern part of the country of Poland. The city of Olsztyn was established in 1353 and has a population of just under 200,000. The area of the city covers 88.328 km (34.104 sq mi). Olsztyn is the capital of the Warmian-Masurian province in Poland. Olsztyn is immensely popular with the tourists from all over the world for the dense forests and the lakes situated in the region. Olsztyn is famous for the lakes that are located in the city. There are 13 lakes in Olsztyn. The lakes in Olsztyn add to the beauty of the landscape of the region and also provide many activities for tourists.
TOP SEEDS
Olympians and hopeful Olympians abound as many of the world’s best beach volleyball teams are entered in this week’s FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam in Poland.
The top-seeded preliminary men’s teams for the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam are Brazil’s top-seeded Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, USA’s second-seeded Jake Gibb/Casey Patterson, Brazil’s third-seeded Pedro Solberg/Evandro Goncalves, Austria’s fourth-seeded Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst and Latvia’s fifth-seeded Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins.
The second-five preliminary men’s pre-seeds competing in the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam are Canada’s sixth-seeded Chaim Schalk/Ben Saxton, USA’s seventh-seeded John Hyden/Tri Bourne, Spain’s eighth-seeded Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira, Italy’s ninth-seeded Alex Ranghieri/Adrian Carambula and Poland’s 10th-seeded Fijalek/Prudel.
For the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam, the top preliminary pre-seeded women’s teams are Poland’s top-seeded Kolosinka/Brzostek, Brazil’s second-seeded Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas, Brazil’s third-seeded Larissa Franca/Talita Antunes, Germany’s fourth-seeded Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst and Canada’s fifth-seeded Sarah Pavan/Heather Bansley.
The second-five preliminary pre-seeded women’s team competing in Olsztyn are Brazil’s sixth-seeded Juliana Felisberta/Taiana Lima, Netherlands’ seventh-seeded Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel, Germany’s eighth-seeded Karla Borger/Britta Buthe, USA’s ninth-seeded Lauren Fendrick/Brooke Sweat and Spain’s 10th-seeded Liliana Fernandez/Elsa Baquerizo.
FIVB OLSZTYN GRAND SLAM PURSE/POINTS
The gold medal teams at the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam, 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 POLAND
As the host nation for the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam, Poland has five men’s teams pre-seeded into the men’s main draw for this event. USA’s men’s main draw teams are 10th-seeded Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel, 11th-seeded Bartosz Losiak/Piotr Kantor, 14th-seeded Michal Kadziola/Jakub Szalankiewicz, 22nd-seeded Maciej Kosiak/Maciej Rudol and 24th-seeded Michal Bryl/Kacper kujawiak.
As the host nation for the FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam, Poland has three women’s teams pre-seeded into the women’s main draw for this event along with three teams in the women’s qualification tournament. Poland’s confirmed women’s main draw teams are top-seeded Kinga Kolosinska/Monika Brzostek, 22nd-seeded Jagoda Gruszczynska/Dorota Strag and 24th-seeded Katarzyna Kociolek/Martyna Wardak.
Entered in the women’s qualification tournament from Poland are Agata Trybula/Monika Gorzka, Agnieszka Adamek/Natalia Gruszczynska and Agnieszka Woloszyn/Aleksandra Zdon.
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 conclude with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Aug. 6-18).
The FIVB World Tour finished its Olympic qualifying last week with the double-gender $800,000 smart FIVB Hamburg Major in Germany. After Hamburg, remaining 2016 FIVB World Tour events prior to the Rio Olympics will be this week’s FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam in Poland and three more Swatch FIVB Major Series events. First will be the 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 FIVB Olsztyn Grand Slam in Poland will be the 346th men’s tournament since the FIVB began play in 1987 and the 307th 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 through 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. 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.