The Paris 2024 beach volleyball tournament was one of the most popular events at the Summer Olympic Games last year. The magnificent beach volleyball stadium at the foot of the Eiffel Tower was everyone’s favourite photo opportunity and the hottest place to be during the Olympics, but that was only part of the reasons why the stands were fully packed throughout the competition, from July 27 to August 10. The rest had to do with the spectacular performances some of the world’s best beach volleyball athletes put on in the sand as they raced for the highest honours in sports.

24 pairs from 18 different countries, representing all five continental confederations, took part in the men’s Paris 2024 Olympic beach volleyball tournament.

The world’s number one men’s team, David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig, went through a bumpy ride in Paris, but eventually made it to the top of the podium. At their rookie Olympic appearance, the 22-year-old Swedes triumphed as Paris 2024 champions and added the Olympic gold to an already impressive line of achievements, including the Youth Olympic crown at Buenos Aires 2018, the FIVB U21 Beach Volleyball World Championship title in 2021, two CEV European Championship crowns, three age-group continental titles and multiple gold medals on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour. With their achievement in Paris, Ahman & Hellvig also wrote history by bringing in their country’s first-ever Olympic medal in beach volleyball.

Seeded as the number one team in the Olympic bracket, Ahman & Hellvig started off in Pool A with a straight-set win over Australia’s Mark Nicolaidis & Izac Carracher. Unexpectedly, the Swedish jump-setters lost their remaining two pool matches, to Qatar’s Cherif Younousse & Ahmed Tijan in three sets and to Italy’s Samuele Cottafava & Paolo Nicolai in straight sets, and barely qualified for the knockout phase of the tournament as the third-placed team in the pool. In a three-set eighthfinal, Ahman & Hellvig overcame the resistance of trending Cubans Noslen Diaz & Jorge Alayo, before sweeping their quarterfinal against Brazil’s Evandro Oliveira & Arthur Mariano.

In the semifinals, the Swedish duo had another encounter with Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze medallists Cherif & Ahmed, but this time they hammered out an emphatic 2-0 (21-13, 21-17) victory, handing the Qatari pair their first defeat at the Olympics.

Third-seeded Germans Nils Ehlers & Clemens Wickler dethroned Tokyo 2020 Olympic champions Anders Mol & Christian Sorum in a stunning semifinal against the second-seeded Norwegians and became the second German pair in history to make it to the men’s Olympic final. In a high-adrenalin three-setter, Ehlers & Wickler celebrated a 2-1 (21-13, 17-21, 15-13) victory with Ehlers playing a fantastic game at the net and raising as many as nine kill blocks towards an impressive match high of 30 points.

In the gold medal showdown, however, Ahman & Hellvig were unstoppable and mastered a convincing 2-0 (21-10, 21-13) win over Ehlers & Wickler, dominating on all counts from start to finish. Hellvig raised four kill blocks towards a match-high 14 points, while Ahman finished with 11, including two aces and the swing that brought in the match winner.

“It's just unbelievable! We don't really know what we did out there. We played our hearts out and it worked so well. And now we're standing here with a gold medal,” an elated Ahman said after the awarding ceremony. “We were so focused on every point and didn't really look too much at the score. It was always about the next point and when we got the last point, I just couldn't believe it. I was looking over at the scoreboard and I was like, what happened? It's crazy!”

“We focused before this game, and we knew that if we played well, we could win this match. And then we got to a really good start and after that everything just worked for us and I still don't believe how we managed to play that well actually,” Hellvig added.

First-time Olympian Ehlers and second-time Olympian Wickler settled for the Paris 2024 silver, their country’s third Olympic medal in men’s beach volleyball, after Jorg Ahmann & Axel Hager's bronze at Sydney 2000 and Julius Brink & Jonas Reckermann's gold at London 2012.

Mol & Sorum showed their high class in the third place match and claimed their second Olympic medal, after the Tokyo 2020 gold. The Norwegian Beachvolley Vikings snatched the bronze at Paris 2024 with a 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) win over Cherif & Ahmed.

Olympic Games Paris 2024 Beach Volleyball: all results

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