08/11/2018 12:00
2019 Snow Volleyball European Tour to feature seven stops in five countries!
2019 CEV Snow Volleyball European Tour
Luxembourg, November 8, 2018. After the historic and highly successful European Snow Volleyball Championship held earlier this year in Austria, fans can look forward to an exciting 2019 Snow Volleyball season, which will start shortly before the holiday season in the Russian capital, Moscow. Following the major change announced a couple of months ago, meaning teams will now consist of three players on each side of the net, the 2019 European Tour features seven stops in five countries, with Russia playing host to such an event for the first time in history.
The 2019 Snow Volleyball European Tour will get underway December 20-23 in Moscow, Russia, with an event at the Vodny stadium, a place many know from previous major Beach Volleyball competitions held in the Russian metropolis. Russia have become a major Snow Volleyball force, with Taras Myskiv and Ruslan Daianov claiming the continental crown last March in Austria after previously dominating the 2018 edition of the European Tour. Russia hosted their first Snow Volleyball national championship in Sochi two years ago and the availability of snow for five to six months a year obviously provides the Russian Volleyball Federation with the opportunity to host such events not only at ski resorts. The Vodny stadium in Moscow, home to FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour events for five years, will surely account for a great ambiance and the organisers expect a large crowd to come together for the first-ever international Snow Volleyball event held on Russian soil.
After a break due to the holiday season, the European Tour will resume January 11-13 in Erciyes, Turkey, where an event of this calibre will be taking place for the third straight year. Turkey have left their mark on the Snow Volleyball scene as well, with Aleyna Vence and Bugra Eryildiz emerging as the 2018 ‘Queens of the Snow’ and silver medal winners from the inaugural European Championship.
Georgia’s most popular ski resort Bakuriani will be hosting a stop of the European Tour for the second straight year February 15-17 before in late March the season continues with two more events on one and the same weekend, March 29-31, namely in Wagrain (Austria) and Prato Nevoso (Italy). Wagrain is the ‘birthplace’ of Snow Volleyball and it will be hosting the first such tournament since the highly successful #EuroSnowVolley that the CEV chose and awarded as the Event of the Year last week in Budapest.
As for Prato Nevoso, this resort has been the home of Snow Volleyball in Italy since 2015 and known as such among Volleyball and Beach Volleyball players in Italy. The European Tour stop will take place during the same weekend as the Acqua San Bernardo Snow Volley Tour Grand Finale, i.e. the last and most important stop of the Italian national tour. The organisers hope to deliver the largest Snow Volleyball event ever in terms of participants setting up some 20 courts, after last year 200 teams, thus accounting for 400 players, competed across as many as 15 courts.
The European Tour will return for the fourth straight season to Plan de Corones / Kronplatz, Italy, April 5-7 before the final stop takes place a week later in St. Anton, Austria.
The addition of locations such as Moscow, Prato Nevoso and St. Anton will help take Snow Volleyball to an even broader audience, thus helping deliver what promises to be a truly exciting season. Stay tuned for more info as the Snow Volleyball party is almost ready to take off!
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