Copenhagen, Denmark, June 12, 2010. The Drawing of Lots for the Sub Zonal Phase of the European Beach Volleyball Continental Cup was staged on Saturday in Copenhagen under the supervision of Mr. Renato Arena, President of the European Beach Volleyball Commission, and in presence of the CEV President André Meyer and members of the CEV Board of Administration.

As far as the Sub Zonal Phase is concerned, the European Continental Beach Volleyball Cup comprises of eight double gender tournaments featuring a maximum of four countries (each country participating with two teams per gender). Each tournament will be played with the formula “Country vs. Country” and as a “best of five”.

The 32 National Federations that registered for the event have been drawn into eight pools starting from the identification of two “macro-zones” that – as far as possible – reflect the geographical location of the various countries. Four tournaments have been set up in each “macro-zone” with their respective starting field resulting from a draw that took into account a combination of their respective CEV rankings (men + women) as per the closing of the 2009 season.

The top two countries from each tournament will advance to the zonal phase scheduled for 2011 which will feature four tournaments per gender of four countries each, followed by the final phase in 2012 which will determine the European Continental Beach Volleyball Cup winner. The five winners of the Continental Beach Volleyball Cup to be played in each of the five Continental Confederations (or the next best in the event’s ranking if a country has already clipped two spots through the world rankings) will qualify directly for the 2012 Olympic Games. In addition, at the end of each continental stage, the next two best ranked countries among those that did not yet get the maximum of two slots per gender in the draw of the Olympics will advance to the so-called FIVB Beach Volleyball Olympic qualification tournament where the last two berths for London 2012 will be allotted.

The Pools for the Sub Zonal Phase have been drawn as follows (organizers are marked in bold):

Pool A: Switzerland, Great Britain, Denmark, Malta
Pool B: Germany, Norway, Slovenia, Portugal
Pool C: Spain, Italy, Sweden, Iceland
Pool D: Netherlands, France, Serbia, Liechtenstein/Israel*
Pool E: Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Croatia
Pool F: Russia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Lithuania
Pool G: Estonia, Greece, Cyprus, Romania
Pool H: Austria, Slovakia, Finland/Bye**, Turkey

* Liechtenstein and Israel will enter the competition together as they both registered only for one gender, namely for women and men respectively
** Finland registered only for the women’s division, so in this Pool only three “Country vs. Country” will be played in the men’s division

Tentative calendar of the European Continental Beach Volleyball Cup – Sub Zonal Phase:

July 21-25            Yantarniy (RUS) Double Gender Event
September 3-5      Illichivsk (UKR) Double Gender Event
October 14-17       Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ESP) Double Gender Event

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