“If you asked us a year ago, we would have said we weren't going to be close,” Javier Bello said in an exclusive interview he and his twin brother Joaquin gave MailOnline before heading off to Brazil for this week’s Recife Challenge on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour.

What the English beach volleyballer was talking about was the qualification process for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Now, however, Javier Bello & Joaquin Bello dare dream about performing under the Eiffel Tower this summer as they are well within reach of one of the 24 men’s tickets to the French capital.

“We've been getting deep into tournaments consistently and it has completely changed the picture. We're going to be in the race up until the very end. We definitely have a big chance,” said Javier. “Qualifying would mean the world to us and our family. We dream of that moment where we step on to the court, in that stadium (under the Eiffel Tower), and have our family sitting there cheering us on.”

The 23-year-old English twins are currently below the cut-off line in the provisional Olympic ranking, on a total of 3,640 points, collected from eight qualifying tournaments. The total number of qualifying events that can count towards the ranking is 12, which means the Bellos have plenty of potential to add to their total, climb up the chart and snatch one of the coveted tickets to Paris.

If they qualify for the Olympics, they will be the first British beach volleyball team to do so since Audrey Cooper & Amanda Glover earned the right to compete at the women's tournament of the Atlanta 1996 Games. The only other time Great Britain was represented at the Games was at London 2012, when the men’s pair of John Garcia-Thompson & Steve Grotowski and the women’s duo of Zara Dampney & Shauna Mullin took advantage of the host-nation quota.

It was the Games in London that played a major role in Javier & Joaquin’s decision to take up beach volleyball.

“We managed to get some tickets for the beach volleyball at London 2012. We were really inspired by what we saw and that's when we made the transition from indoor to beach,” Javier said, and added that the artistic visual of the Paris 2024 beach volleyball venue at the French capital’s landmark site inspired them even more to go for it. "We have been kind of manifesting our Olympic dream for a few years now. As soon as I saw the venue, I said, 'that looks really cool, we want to be there!’”

Qualifying for Paris would be a real feat not only because it would be a first, but also because of the disadvantages the Bellos have for being amateurs.

“Everyone around us in the rankings is professional. They are paid to play, but we have to pay to play,” Joaquin said. “We are still living at home. We have tried to recreate a professional team environment with our family, so our dad is coaching us, our mom is managing logistics and our little brother is our main training partner. If we have got this far with what we have, if we can do this for a living, I think we can really be one of the top teams in the world.”

The Bellos pay court-hire fees to train at Barn Elms Sports Centre in London.

“It's actually one of the London 2012 legacy facilities, so we train on the same sand from that Olympics, which is pretty cool,” said Javier. “But it's outdoors, so we have to endure the winter. Some days we even have to chip the ice away with the rake we use for levelling the court. Otherwise it can be too compact and dangerous because we play barefoot. But we never cancel training. Other international teams cancel as soon as the temperature drops below a certain level or there's rain. If we did that, we wouldn't train half the time!”

Their father Luis Bello, a former Spanish professional player, coaches them outside his full-time job as a physical education teacher.

“He works the whole day and then he comes to coach us in the evenings and weekends,” said Joaquin. “We realize how lucky we are to have a father who is an incredible coach and super experienced.”

“We are all working towards the same goal,” Javier added. “Our mom Barbara also deserves a lot of credit. She has a really demanding job, and then the few moments she gets outside of that, she spends on our volleyball. Another person who doesn't get enough credit is our brother Enrique. He is a very good player to train with and is helping us achieve our dreams. It's a big sacrifice that all three of them make.”

Javier Bello & Joaquin Bello have been playing internationally since 2016. They earned their first medal, a bronze, at the Rubavu 1-star on the 2019 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, and picked up their first gold at the Cortegaca 1-star in 2021. Their Beach Pro Tour collection so far features two bronze medals, one from the Cortegaca Futures in 2022 and one from the Goa Challenge in 2023. The brothers also earned a cherished bronze at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games in England.

The Bellos’ next challenge is the Recife Challenge. The English team are seeded seventh in the main draw of this week’s Beach Pro Tour event in Brazil. Their first pool match is starting at 13:00 local time (16:00 UTC) on Friday against 18^th-seeded Kusti Nolvak & Mart Tiisaar of Estonia, who are on a par with Javier & Joaquin in the provisional Olympic ranking (also at 3,640 points from eight qualifying tournaments). Cuba’s Noslen Diaz & Jorge Alayo, who are less than 300 points behind (3,380), and Brazil’s Renato Lima & Vitor Felipe are the other two teams competing in Pool F.

“We’re one of the smallest teams in the world - I am 6ft and Joaquin is 6ft 1in – so we try to make up for that by being very strong physically,” Javier continued. “We are so united on the court. Because we know each other so well, we don’t have to communicate as much as other teams. Non-verbally we already know what each other is thinking and who is taking what ball. We don't give up. That's our identity – we are brothers and we are fighters.”

VW Beach Pro Tour Recife Challenge: schedule and results
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking and provisional Olympic Ranking - Men

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