The city that hosted the 2016 Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro, is about to stage the last Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event of the year. The men’s line-up in Brazil next week, from November 6 to 10, will feature as many as seven Olympic medallists, including the Tokyo 2020 and the Paris 2024 champions.
Beach Pro Tour
Several Olympic medallists to hit the sand in Rio
The last Elite16 event of the year starts on Wednesday
Published 04:13, 03 Nov 2024
Anders Mol against Jonatan Hellvig in a Joao Pessoa semifinal battle
- Watch the Rio de Janeiro Elite16 on VBTV.
The number one team in the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Ranking, Paris Olympic gold medallists David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig, will be the top-seeded team in the men’s main draw, headlining Pool A. Just two weeks ago, the young Swedish jump-setters finished third at the Joao Pessoa Elite16, also in Brazil, and it was the first time since May 2023, when they competed at a major international competition and did not reach the final. In their pool, Ahman & Hellvig will be in the company of the world’s number 23 team, Mathias Berntsen & Hendrik Mol of Norway, keen to earn their first Tour medal for 2024, and the new Austrian pairing of Philipp Waller & Timo Hammarberg, who made their international debut as a duo at the CEV European Championship in August and are about to hit the Beach Pro Tour for the first time in Rio.
Another Norwegian pair, Tokyo 2020 Olympic champions, Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medallists and former number one team in the world Anders Mol & Christian Sorum, will lead Pool B. The Beachvolley Vikings are the team that put a stop to Ahman & Hellvig’s amazing streak by beating them in the Joao Pessoa semifinals to go on and earn gold, one of many they have collected on the Beach Pro Tour. The 2022 world champions will share Pool B with another Olympic medallist, Latvia’s Martins Plavins, who claimed bronze at London 2012. The experienced 39-year-old three-time Olympian and his current partner, 19-year-old rising star and 2022 U19 world champ Kristians Fokerots, are the reigning 2024 European champions. At their Elite16 debut as a team, they reached the quarterfinals in Joao Pessoa, where they lost to Mol & Sorum. Also in that pool will be former world champion Andre Stein of Brazil, but this time with Adelmo Goncalves as a teammate.
It will not be any easier in Pool C, where Qatari standouts Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan, also former World Ranking leaders, who finished third at Tokyo 2020 and fourth at Paris 2024, will have to face the world’s number five duo, Paris Olympians Steven van de Velde & Matthew Immers of the Netherlands, as well as another Paris Olympian, Arthur Mariano, in a first-time collaboration with 20-year-old fellow Brazilian Pedro Sousa.
In Pool D, Joao Pessoa semifinalists Nicolas Capogrosso & Tomas Capogrosso of Argentina will challenge fourth-seeded Brazilians Adrielson Dos Santos & Arthur Da Silva, who reached the quarterfinals at their two most recent Tour appearances in Hamburg and Joao Pessoa. Ukraine’s top duo, Sergiy Popov & Eduard Reznik, will also compete in that pool.
The Rio de Janeiro Elite16 tournament will get underway on Wednesday, when two rounds of qualification matches will determine the remaining four participants in the 16-team main draw. The qualifier line-up also features a number of well-known pairs and players like Brazil’s Gustavo Carvalhaes (Guto), who will now play alongside Vitor Felipe, Guto’s previous partner Pedro Solberg, who has now teamed up with Gabriel Dos Reis, England’s Joaquin Bello & Javier Bello or Portugal’s Joao Pedrosa & Hugo Campos, to name a few.
