06/03/2017 12:00
Record-breaking participation figures for 2017-2018 Youth Continental Cup
2017-2018 CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup
Luxembourg, March 6, 2017. A record-breaking number of National Federations – 42 – are set to participate in the second edition of the CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup, which will eventually determine the teams representing Europe in the Beach Volleyball competition of next year’s Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As many as 38 National Federations registered for participation in the men’s competition, with the figure standing even higher – at 41 – for the women’s category. These numbers testify that Beach Volleyball is growing at all levels in Europe and the youngsters are ready to take to the sand, compete and try to fulfil their ‘first’ Olympic dream. Back in 2013, 32 and 34 National Federations had participated in the men’s and women’s zonal phase of the inaugural CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup.
The first stage of the competition will be taking place in the summer of 2017 with eight tournaments in as many countries. In order to provide Europe’s stars in the making with the perfect stage where to perform, most of these events will run in conjunction with CEV Satellite tournaments and / or zonal / national tour stops.
The competition will get underway in Moscow in early June with the last of eight events scheduled for mid-August in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The top two sides from each pool will progress to the final stage of the competition due to take place in 2018. National Federations were seeded in groups of eight as per the current U18 European Country Ranking and subsequently drawn across the eight pools (A-H).
There are as many as 11 National Federations making their first appearance in the Youth Continental Cup – eight of these (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Republic of Moldova, Scotland, Slovenia and Sweden) have registered for participation in both genders. On top of this, Monaco and Liechtenstein will make their maiden appearance in the men’s competition as Kosovo and the Former Y.R. of Macedonia will achieve the same feat in the women’s category. This clearly reflects the impact of the development programmes implemented by many National Federations as well as the growth in participation and popularity that Beach Volleyball has experienced since the previous edition.
The programme for the coming months reads as follows:
Pool A in Moscow (RUS): June 3-4
Pool B in Kharkiv (UKR): July 8-9
Pool C in Mersin (TUR): July 29-30
Pool D in Estonia: July 8-9 (venue and dates TBC)
Pool E in Ljubljana (SLO): July 21-22
Pool F in Larnaca (CYP): August 5-6
Pool G in Siofok (HUN): July 15-16
Pool H in Vaduz (LIE): August 12-13
Next to hosting one of eight CEV Youth Beach Volleyball Continental Cup events, the cities of Kharkiv (Ukraine), Siofok (Hungary) and Larnaca (Cyprus) will be playing host to CEV Satellites on the same dates – with the tournaments in Ukraine and Hungary being men’s only competitions and the one in Cyprus featuring only women. CEV ‘senior’ tournaments were confirmed already for a number of other venues – i.e. Mersin, Ljubljana and Vaduz.
Beach Volleyball made its first appearance in the programme of the Youth Olympics in 2014 in Nanjing, China where Russia’s Artem Yarzutkin/Oleg Stoyanovskiy won gold in the men’s competition and Germany’s Lisa Arnholdt/Sarah Schneider settled for the bronze medal in the women’s tournament.
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