21/06/2016 22:04
Norway’s Beach Volleyball capital embraces Olympic qualifying event
2014-2016 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup - Final
Stavanger, Norway, June 21, 2016. The stage is set in Stavanger for the 2014-2016 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup Final. A large share of Europe’s Beach Volleyball elite has travelled to Norway’s oil and Beach Volleyball capital hoping to crown their lifelong dream – i.e. to compete at this summer’s Rio 2016 Olympics. Stavanger is the first European city to organise an Olympic qualifying event after previously playing host – in 2009 – to the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships. The competition will start on Wednesday with the women’s Round of 16 and a number of ties which are expected to deliver very close and exciting matches.
Click here for a schedule of the 2014-2016 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup Final
Click here for a live and comprehensive gallery of the 2014-2016 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup
Team Norway
The CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup Final is taking place only a few days after Norway’s Beach Volleyball family celebrated yet another major success – on Sunday Anders Berntsen Mol and Aleksander Sandlie Sørum won gold at the CEV U20 Beach Volleyball European Championship in Antalya, Turkey.
Sørum’s elder brother Christian, himself a U22 European champion in 2014, is one of four players carrying the Norwegian hopes of home glory in Stavanger – alongside the much more experienced Iver Andreas Horrem and Geir Eithun, and his partner Morten Kvamsdal. “My brother’s and his partner’s success is something truly important for Norway. Any such success in age-group competitions can only provide further support to our sport and to the activities and development projects of the Norwegian Volleyball Federation,” Sørum said. “My dad went to Turkey to follow my brother and now the family will re-unite here in Stavanger this week. Of course I am very much looking forward to playing such important tournament on home sand.”
Women’s Round of 16
The women’s Round of 16 will open the competition on Wednesday, with matches starting at 11am local time.
The home teams of Norway will start their campaign by playing Ukraine – an opponent whose roster includes the likes of Valentyna Davidova and Ievgeniia Shchypkova, who earlier this month topped the final standing of the EEVZA Moscow Masters and of the CEV Satellite in Vilnius.
A Nordic derby will oppose Sweden to Finland with Sweden’s Karin Lundqvist and Anne Lie Rininsland hoping to build on their outstanding performance at the EuroBeachVolley in Biel / Bienne where they finished in ninth place after their participation was confirmed only the night before actions went underway on the shores of Lake Biel. Finland, on the other hand, will chiefly rely on Riikka Lehtonen and Taru Lahti, who earlier this season claimed a historic silver medal – the first ever for their country on the World Tour – at the FIVB Open in Antalya, Turkey.
Austria and Greece are also likely to deliver a very close contest with as many as three former European Championship medallists starring in this tie – Stefanie Schwaiger (a gold medal winner in 2013) and Barbara Hansel (silver medallist in 2011) for Austria and Vasiliki Arvaniti (who won gold in 2005 and 2007 as well as silver in 2012) competing for Greece.
Russia are definitely among the ‘hottest’ contenders for the sole ticket to Rio 2016 at stake in Stavanger and they will start their quest for that slot playing France – 2015 European silver medallists Ekaterina Birlova/Evgenia Ukolova and Laura Longuet/Alexandra Jupiter, who finished fifth in Biel / Bienne, will headline this matchup for Russia and France, respectively.
The Czech Republic and Slovakia will be going for a ‘derby’ that will feature 2016 European silver medallists Marketa Slukova/Barbora Hermannova (CZE), the real sensation of this year’s EuroBeachVolley in Biel / Bienne, and Slovakia’s ‘Queens of the Beach’, Natalia Dubovcova and Dominika Nestarcova, who just won bronze at the Olsztyn Grand Slam in Poland.
Belgium and Spain are among the underdogs in the competition but still teams to watch out for as much as Italy and Poland that will also clash for a spot in the quarter-finals. Lithuania and the Netherlands complete the Round of 16 fixtures, with the ‘Oranjes’ knowing that they will have to perform their best to stand the challenge brought by the young ladies from Vilnius, including Urte Andriukaityte/Irina Zobnina who earlier this month claimed a silver medal at a CEV Satellite on home sand.
The format
Each NF participates with two teams which must be composed of athletes NOT having already qualified quota spots to the Olympic Games for their NFs through the FIVB Olympic Ranking.
The event is played using a 16 NFs single elimination in a country vs. country matches ‘best-of-three’ format. Each NF participates with two teams per gender composed of two players each.
In the ‘best-of-three’ format the sequence of matches will be as follows:
• Match No 1: (Higher seeded NF) team 1 vs (Lower seeded NF) team 2
• Match No 2: (Higher seeded NF) team 2 vs (Lower seeded NF) team 1
• Match No 3: “Golden Match” – in case of tie in matches won and lost (this match can be played in any combination of the four participating athletes per NF).
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