Last week’s Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Brasilia Elite16 not only did not untie any knots in the race for Paris 2024 tickets, but actually made some knots tighter, like the three-way race for the two Dutch spots in the men’s Olympic tournament.
Beach Pro Tour
Olympic Ranking: Race for Dutch quota tightens up
Esmee & Zoe get a hold of a qualifying spot after Brasilia bronze
Published 01:03, 08 May 2024
Brasilia Elite16 quarterfinal action between Van de Velde & Immers and Brouwer & Meeuwsen
With Steven van de Velde & Matthew Immers reaching the final in Brazil, Alexander Brouwer & Robert Meeuwsen making it to the quarterfinals, and Stefan Boermans & Yorick de Groot stopping at the eighthfinals, all three pairs are now positioned within a 600-point range in the provisional Olympic Ranking.
Netting 300 points in Brasilia, Brouwer & Meeuwsen are still the highest ranked of the three, on a total of 8,600 points, but now Van de Velde & Immers are just 220 points behind, after pocketing 760 of the points that came with last week’s silver. Boermans & De Groot also shortened the distance to the leaders, as they added the full 600 points earned in Brazil towards a new total of 8,000 points. With 10 qualifying tournaments played, Boermans & De Groot have yet to meet the minimum requirement of 12, which also means that they will net-gain the full amount of points earned at their next two appearances, without dropping any points from less successful participations.
Van de Velde & Immers also climbed six spots up the FIVB World Ranking, from number 16 to number 10, and joined the top 10 of the chart for the first time along their journey as a team, pushing Trevor Crabb & Theodore Brunner of the United States out of the way.
Meanwhile, the leaders in the American three-way race for two spots under the Eiffel Tower, Miles Partain & Andrew Benesh, reached the 12-tournament milestone and became the formal holders of a provisional qualifying berth for Paris 2024, taking it away from compatriots Chase Budinger & Miles Evans. While both teams reached the Brasilia quarterfinals, Partain & Benesh netted the full 760 points and improved to an 8,980 total, while Budinger & Evans only gained 300 points towards a new total of 7,760. Still, that put them within just 100 points of the second highest ranked US pair, Crabb & Brunner, who failed to make it past the pool stage last week and did not improve their overall score.
It is worth noting that Brasilia winners Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano of Brazil jumped three positions up the FIVB World Ranking to number six, the team’s highest-ever placement in the chart.
Exciting development unfolded in the Swiss race for two women’s quota at Paris 2024. The sibling rivalry between sisters Anouk and Zoe Verge-Depre took a new turn and one of the country’s qualifying spots changed hands again. The team of Esmee Bobner & Zoe Verge-Depre took the bronze in Brasilia, netted 540 of the points earned and surpassed their compatriots Joana Mader & Anouk Verge-Depre, Olympic bronze medallists from Tokyo 2020, in the provisional Olympic Ranking. Esmee & Zoe are now the second highest ranked Swiss pair on a total of 7,900 points, or 460 points above Mader & Verge-Depre, whose Brasilia campaign did not take them past the qualifiers and did not improve their score for the ranking.
Esmee & Zoe celebrate their third place in Brasilia
Meanwhile, the highest ranked Swiss duo, Nina Brunner & Tanja Huberli, did not get past the pool stage, but still added 460 points to their record and stand on a new total of 9,220 points, at a relatively comfortable distance from the other two Swiss teams.
Esmee & Zoe also moved up five positions in the FIVB World Ranking, to number 14, the highest they have been since June 2022.
- Sign up to VBTV until May 9 with the code 'Early25' to get 25% off or until May 13 with the code 'Early10' to get 10% off.
