With competition during the Russian Day holiday celebration, the second of six Grand slam events on the 2010 SWATCH FIVB World Tour will be held in Moscow June 7-14 at Victory Park where men’s and women’s teams from Brazil, China, Germany and the United States have captured gold medals the past two seasons. The Moscow Grand Slam will conclude on a weekend when the Eurasia country celebrates a holiday of national unity. While Russian Day is June 12, the holiday weekend starts the day before and concludes on the same day as the men’s SWATCH finale June 14. The 2010 event is the fifth SWATCH FIVB World Tour event in Moscow as the initial events were men’s-only stops in 1998 and 1999. The international Beach Volleyball circuit returned to the Russian capital in 2008 when the pairs of Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers of the United States and Chen Xue/Xi Zhang captured the men’s and women’s gold medals, respectively. After Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa França of Brazil captured the 2009 Russian Grand Slam title, the Moscow men’s gold medal match was the longest of the season as Germany’s Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann won their third-straight “major” SWATCH event in the 74-minute, three-set finale on the Victory Park center court. Brink and Reckermann, who became the first-ever European men’s or women’s team to win a SWATCH FIVB World Championship two weeks earlier in Stavanger, Norway, scored a come-from-behind 26-28, 21-18 and 16-14 win over Athens 2004 Olympic champions Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos of Brazil. The Moscow gold medal win was the 22nd-straight SWATCH win for the Germans that tied a tour mark for consecutive match victories. Brink and Reckermann won their first three matches in France the next week before losing in the Marseille semi-finals to break the record initially established by Emanuel and Jose Loiola in 1999.  Pictured below to the left are 2009 women's Moscow Grand Slam champions Juliana (left) and Larissa.