Lausanne, Switzerland, January 3, 2017 - The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour returns to the Netherlands from June 15 to 18 for the double-gender FIVB The Hague 3-Star Open. The Hague event will mark the seventh time for a men’s competition in the Netherlands and seventh women’s tournament held in the country.
It will be held at the new Sportcampus Zuiderpark in conjunction with a FIVB Volleyball World League event. It will be the first time that these two disciplines will have tournaments played simultaneously at the same venue.
The five-star structure instituted starting with the 2017 FIVB World Tour is one of the many steps taken by the FIVB to modernize and streamline its competitions in a golden period for beach volleyball on the heels of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and on the road to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
FIVB President Dr. Ary S. Graça F° said, “The aim of the new structure is to provide a platform and formation of events that increase the number of competitions in a growing number of hosting countries and create a sustainable business model while providing additional commercial flexibility and opportunities.”
It will be the seventh FIVB international competition held in the Netherlands with the other six double-gender events all held in The Hague in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015. The event in 2015, anchored in The Hague, with preliminary rounds in Amsterdam, Apeldoorn and Rotterdam, was the 10th FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships.
Through the 2015 event, Netherlands has hosted a total of 12 FIVB World Tour events (six men, six women) with Brazil leading the medal count in both genders. In the men’s totals after six events, Brazil has seven medals, followed by the Netherlands and the United States with three each, Poland with two, and with one men’s medal each in the Hague are Latvia, Russia and Spain.
After six FIVB World Tour women’s events held in Netherlands through 2015, Brazil leads the medal parade with 13 total medals followed by Germany and the USA with two each and with one women’s medal in The Hague is China.
The men’s gold medal-winning team at the 2015 FIVB World Championships in the Netherlands was Brazil’s Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt while winning the women’s gold medal in was Brazil’s Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas.
On the men’s side in 2015, winning the silver medal was the Dutch duo of Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst and claiming the bronze medal was Brazil’s Evandro Goncalves/Pedro Solberg.
For the women in 2015, the silver medal went to Brazil’s Fernanda Alves/Taiana Lima and the bronze medal was won by Brazil’s Maria Antonelli/Juliana Felisberta.
The Hague is the seat of government in the Netherlands and the capital city of the province of South Holland. With a population just over 500,000 and more than one million inhabitants including the suburbs, it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
The Hague is located in the west part of the Netherlands. The Hague is the seat of the Dutch government and parliament, the Supreme Court and the Council of State, but the city is not the capital of the Netherlands which constitutionally is Amsterdam. Most foreign embassies in the Netherlands and 150 international organizations are located in the city.
The highlight of the 2017 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar will be the $1,000,000 2017 FIVB World Championships, a 48-team (per gender) event to be held July 28-August 6 in Vienna, Austria.
In addition to Austria and the Netherlands, 16 other countries will host competitions with Malaysia hosting an international beach volleyball event for the first time in mid-April.
The 2017 FIVB World Ranking system will include FIVB Beach Volleyball Major Series, 5-star, 4-star, 3-star, 2-star and 1-star events along with additional pre-approved events at the inter-continental, continental and national levels.
Implemented in 2013, the format of all the FIVB Beach Volleyball international tournaments are the same, featuring pool play followed by single elimination knockout rounds.
Country quota playoffs are also held, as needed, to determine the final teams for qualification tournaments.
The first men’s FIVB World Tour event was played February 17-22, 1987 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil while the first women’s FIVB World Tour event in Brazil was played in 1993 in Rio de Janeiro. The women’s FIVB World Tour held its first tournament in Spain in 1992.