The 20 teams preparing to play at the 2021 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Finals are now confirmed ahead of the tournament that will take place in Cagliari, Sardinia, from October 6-10.
Olympic champions lead World Tour Finals lineup
Mol/Sorum and Ross/Klineman among the ten teams per gender set to compete in Sardinia
Published 09:11, 15 Sept 2021
The entry list features duos from 12 different countries and includes four of the six teams that recently took places on the Olympic podiums, including the gold medallists in both genders. From the 40 athletes entered in the World Tour Finals, 37 are Olympians and 14 have won Olympic medals.
In the men's tournament, the lineup is led by Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sorum, the reigning Olympic champions. The Beach Volley Vikings are the only team among the ten men’s duos to have won the tournament before, in 2018.
Tokyo bronze medallists Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar will also be in contention, alongside fellow Olympic medallists Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai of Italy, who won silver at the Rio 2016 Games, and Dutch pair Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen, who took bronze five years ago.
Latvian Martins Plavins, a bronze medallist at the London 2012 Games, and partner Edgars Tocs are one of two wild cards in the men's competition, alongside Italians Adrian Carambula and Enrico Rossi. The Czech Republic’s Ondrej Perusic/David Schweiner, Russia’s Konstantin Semenov/Ilya Leshukov, the Netherlands’ Christiaan Varenhorst/Steven van de Velde and USA’s Jake Gibb/Taylor Crabb complete the men's entry list.
Jake Gibb will compete alongside Taylor Crabb in Sardinia
Tokyo gold medallists April Ross and Alix Klineman headline the women’s teams entered in the event, which will take place just two months after their victory in the Japanese capital. Competing with them will be, among others, Canadians Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes, the reigning world champions, and Brazilians Agatha Bednarczuk and Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa, the winners of the 2018 World Tour Finals.
Tokyo Olympians Kelly Claes and Sarah Sponcil will be a second team to represent the United States in Cagliari. Switzerland will also have two teams contending for medals as both reigning European champions Nina Betschart/Tanja Huberli and Tokyo bronze medallists Joana Heidrich/Anouk Verge-Depre will be present.
Tanja Huberli and Nina Betschart will be one of two Swiss teams in the women's tournament
The Swiss Olympic medallists enter the tournament on a wild card, as do Italians Marta Menegatti and 18-year-old Valentina Gottardi, the youngest athlete in the tournament. The three other women’s teams preparing to compete are Germany’s Karla Borger/Julia Sude, the Netherlands’ Sanne Keizer/Madelein Meppelink and Russia’s Nadezda Makroguzova/Svetlana Kholomina.
The ten teams per gender participating in the five-day tournament will be split into two pools. The pool phase will be played in a single round robin system and the top two tandems in each group will advance to the semifinals.
