Lausanne, Switzerland, September 11, 2015 - The Mangaung Open, which was the fourth Open event scheduled to take place in the 2015/16 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, has been removed from the calendar due to financial constraints encountered by the event organisers in South Africa with an expectation that the event will now take place in the 2016/17 calendar at a date to be confirmed.
South Africa held successful Open events in Durban in 2013 and Mangaung in 2014. The event in Durban two years ago crowned Latvia’s Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins and China’s pairing of Xinyi Xia/Chen Xue, while last year's event saw Dutch team Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst and Czechs Martina Bonnerova/Barbara Hermannova end 2015 with victories at the inaugural edition of the Mangaung Open.
The 2015/16 calendar has been very stable with minimal changes throughout the season. The dates of the Mangaung Open in 2016/17 are expected to be confirmed at the Beach Volleyball Commission from October 5-9.
The pre-Olympic 2015 season includes the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships The Netherlands 2015, five FIVB Grand Slams, a new FIVB Beach Volleyball Major Series including stops in Croatia, Norway and Switzerland, the first edition of the FIVB Swatch Beach Volleyball World Tour Finals, which is due to take place from September 29 to October 4 in Fort Lauderdale, USA and six FIVB Opens.
The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 2015 also launches the Olympic qualification process with all FIVB World Tour events (except the World Tour Finals) in 2015 up until June 13, 2016 counting towards the Olympic Ranking in order to determine the 15 vacancies for each gender, which will take part in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Following the FIVB Swatch Beach Volleyball World Tour Finals in Fort Lauderdale, the 2015/16 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour season will begin with three Open events. These will take place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (October 6-11), Antalya, Turkey (October 20-25) and Doha, Qatar (November 9-13).