The Paris 2024 Olympic tournament turned into a true celebration of beach volleyball. The best 24 pairs in the world in each gender got together at the foot of the Eiffel Tower from July 27 to August 10 to put the beauty of the sport on global display. The spectacular beach volleyball venue in the French capital was widely recognized as the most attractive venue at the Olympics, while both the fantastic fans, who kept the stands packed throughout the tournament, and the players, who put on some top-calibre beach volleyball, lived up to that magnificent stadium and created a truly memorable event.

The world’s number one women’s team, Ana Patricia Ramos & Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) of Brazil, also lived up to their status and triumphed as Olympic champions for the first time in their careers. They brought Brazil back to the top of the women’s Olympic podium for the first time since Sandra Pires & Jackie Silva claimed the inaugural gold at Atlanta 1996. The Olympic title was the last missing laurel in Ana Patricia & Duda’s showcase, but now it shines next to the duo’s 2022 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship crown, 2014 Youth Olympic title, two U21 World Championship titles and multiple trophies on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour.

It was the second Olympic appearance for either of the two Brazilian standouts. They had also competed at Tokyo 2020, but with different partners, so Paris 2024 was their first attempt at Olympic gold together as a team.

Ana Patricia & Duda reached the semifinals without dropping a single set in the five matches played along the way. In Pool A, the top seeds shut out Marwa Abdelhady & Doaa Elghobashy of Egypt, Liliana Fernandez & Paula Soria of Spain and Valentina Gottardi & Marta Menegatti of Italy. Then they swept their eighthfinal against Japan’s Akiko Hasegawa & Miki Ishii and their quarterfinal against Latvia’s Tina Graudina & Anastasija Samoilova.

In their last two steps towards the title, however, Ana Patricia & Duda had to battle through three-set duels. After losing their first set since the start of the tournament in their semifinal game against Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallists Mariafe Artacho Del Solar & Taliqua Clancy of Australia, the Brazilians fought their way back to a 2-1 (20-22, 21-15, 15-12) victory with an amazing 31-point match high from Ana Patricia.

In the other semifinal, fourth-seeded Melissa Humana-Paredes & Brandie Wilkerson of Canada denied an opponent match point in the second set to mount a solid 2-1 (14-21, 22-20, 15-12) comeback against Switzerland’s Tanja Huberli & Nina Brunner.

In the first-ever three-set final in the history of women’s Olympic beach volleyball, Ana Patricia & Duda achieved a 2-1 (26-24, 12-21, 15-10) victory over Melissa & Brandie, who had to settle for silver, their country’s first-ever women’s medal and second overall in Olympic beach volleyball. In the gold medal showdown, Ana Patricia contributed 23 points to her pair’s victory and Duda added 21, while Brandie produced a match-high 30 points.

“We tried to imagine what it would be like to win the Olympic title, but we had no idea. We can’t even describe what we are feeling now. It’s very special, a dream come true!” Ana Patricia exclaimed after the medal ceremony.

“I believe that I am the Olympic champion only because I have the medal. It’s incredible to win the Olympic medal 10 years after we won the Youth Olympic gold,” Duda added. “It has been many years since the previous Olympic gold for Brazil, but we should look at our own work. We are very grateful to those who wrote history, but now we have to think about writing our history. I told Pati she will be my last partner and we will one day retire together.”

Huberli & Brunner claimed the bronze medals after an emphatic straight-set 2-0 (21-17, 21-15) win over Mariafe & Clancy in the third place match. It was Switzerland’s second consecutive Olympic bronze in women’s beach volleyball, following Joana Heidrich (now Mader) & Anouk Verge-Depre’s third place in Tokyo three years earlier. It was also Europe’s only third ever women’s Olympic podium in the sport.

Eventually, newly crowned Olympic champions Ana Patricia & Duda were chosen as Brazil’s flag bearers at the closing ceremony and that was the first time in history two women carried the Brazilian flag at the closing Olympic event.

A total of 24 women’s teams, representing 17 different countries from all five continental confederations, took part in the Paris 2024 Olympic beach volleyball competition.

Olympic Games Paris 2024 Beach Volleyball: all results

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Paris 2024 Olympic Beach Volleyball
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