One of the most traditional and anticipated tournaments of the international beach volleyball season, the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Gstaad Elite16 is coming up next week, with the best teams in the planet set to get up to compete at the Swiss Alps from July 5-9.

The 22^nd international men’s event held in Gstaad will have the presence of the duos that won the last four editions of the tournament, with Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum, the Netherlands’ Stefan Boermans/Yorick de Groot and Chile’s Marco Grimalt/Esteban Grimalt all set to appear in this year’s event.

• Watch the Beach Pro Tour Gstaad Elite16 live on VBTV.

Reigning Olympic and world champions Mol and Sørum will try to return to the top of the podium in the Swiss Alps after four years. The top-seeded team in the main draw, the Beach Volley Vikings took home the elusive Gstaad cowbells in FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour events in 2018 and 2019, becoming just the second team to take gold in Gstaad in back-to-back seasons, but had to settle for fifth in 2021 and ninth in 2022.

Also guaranteed in the main draw as the 11^th-seeded duo, Boermans and de Groot had the biggest moment of their careers so far in the Swiss Alps, when they made a surprising run that ended at the top of the podium in a World Tour event in 2021.

The Grimalt cousins Marco and Esteban were the winners of the inaugural Beach Pro Tour event in Gstaad, last year’s Elite16 tournament. The South American Olympians will have a long journey to defend their last year’s title as they will begin the tournament in the qualifier, as the top-seeded team.

Brazilian Olympians Evandro Gonçalves and Pedro Solberg, who won an FIVB World Tour event in Gstaad back in 2016, will also be in contention this time, but with different partners. Both will start their campaigns in the qualifier, with Evandro and partner Arthur Lanci ranking third and Pedro and teammate Gustavo ‘Guto’ Carvalhaes appearing as the seventh-seeded duo.

The teams that took silver in the last two years in Gstaad will also be back looking to improve from their previous results. Last year’s runners-up Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner of Czechia are seeded third in the main draw, open position below the 2021 silver medallists, Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar.

2023 Gstaad Elite16 – Men’s Entry List

Completing the list of 12 teams that will begin the event in the main draw are France’s Youssef Krou/Arnaud Gauthier-Rat, Italy’s Adrian Carambula/Alex Ranghieri, Germany’s Nils Ehlers/Clemens Wickler, Poland’s Michal Bryl/Bartosz Łosiak, Brazil’s Andre Loyola/George Wanderley, the Netherlands’ Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen, USA’s Andy Benesh/Miles Partain and Switzerland’s Marco Krattiger/Florian Breer.

As many as 28 men’s teams from 18 different countries will be in action in the Gstaad Elite16. The event offers US$ 150,000 in prize money (per gender) and precious points towards Paris 2024 Olympic qualification.

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