Working solidly as a team all season, USA's Jake Gibb, left, and Sean Rosenthal won two gold medals on their way to becoming just the third American champions in the tour's 24-year history as the won the 2012 FIVB SWATCH World Tour title

Lausanne, Switzerland, August 21, 2012 – Playing as if they were having the time of their life, USA’s Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal capped their best international season in their long career by earning the men’s season point championship of the 2012 FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour, which finished with its 11th event last week at the double-gender $600,000 Mazury Orlen Grand Slam in Stare Jablonki, Poland.

The last of an FIVB-record eight grand slams on the 2012 FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour schedule, the Mazury Orlen Grand Slam saw Gibb/Rosenthal finish in fourth place to become just the third team from the United States to win the season title in the 24-year history of the FIVB SWATCH World Tour.

With schedule adjustments made since the 2012 season started in April, the Stare Jablonki grand slam was the last of 11 men’s events and 10th of 12 women’s events for the year. The women will finish their 2012 tour with an event at the end of August in Aland, Finland and in Bang Saen, Thailand in late October.

USA’s 6-7 Gibb, 36, and 6-4 Rosenthal, 32, who finished fifth in the London 2012 Olympic Games had just an 80-point lead over Brazil’s Alison Cerutti/Emanuel Rego, the 2011 FIVB SWATCH World Champions who won the silver medal in London, entering the season finale. Combined with their fourth place finish and the fifth place finish by Brazil’s Alison/Emanuel, USA’s Gibb/Rosenthal earned their title with 5,280 points.

Second was Brazil’s Alison/Emanuel with 5,180 points while third in the 2012 point standings went to USA’s Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers, the 2010 FIVB SWATCH World Tour champions, who had 4,120 points in 2012.

Originally from Bountiful, Utah and living now in Costa Mesa, Calif., Gibb, the youngest of 11 children, reflected on his team’s championship season saying, “The high point is winning the FIVB SWATCH World Tour championship. If you had asked me before the season if we were going to win… it’s never even been a goal.

"It was a stunner and a wonderful surprise. The low point would be, I felt like we were contenders going into the Olympics and we didn’t get the finish we wanted. In my volleyball career winning this world tour championships is my biggest accomplishment and certainly our biggest as a beach volleyball team.”

Gibb/Rosenthal qualified for the second Olympic games through the FIVB SWATCH World Tour after winning a tight battle with compatriots Matt Fuerbringer/Nick Lucena for the final Team USA nomination behind Dalhausser/Rogers.

In the process, USA’s Gibb/Rosenthal had a championship season to remember. In their eight best events that qualified them for the season title, the daring duo won two gold medals, two silver medals, one bronze medal, with two fourth place finishes and one fifth. Almost amazingly, in Rome, Italy and Gstaad, Switzerland this summer USA’s Gibb/Rosenthal earned back-to-back gold medal match victories over Brazil’s great Alison/Emanuel.

Gibb continued his comments on the year, speaking about his team, saying, “Our strength as a team is definitely working together. We’re both good players, but when we play together we can be great.”

An extremely positive element added to the mix this season for Gibb/Rosenthal was the addition of USA’s Atlanta 1996 silver medalist Mike Dodd as their new coach.

Said Rosenthal, the second-youngest of seven children originally from Redondo Beach, Calif. and now living in Corona del Mar, Calif., “We got Mike Dodd on our team. He absolutely changed our game in big, big ways. It was hard at first. It took a couple months to buy in because they were big changes. We’re glad we did.”

USA's Gibb/Rosenthal were the money leaders as well on the 2012 FIVB SWATCH World Tour, earning $240,100 as a team while second Brazil's Alison/Cerutti with $224,000,  third was Netherlands' Reinder Nummerdor/Richard Schuil with $168,400 and USA's Dalhausser/Rogers fourth with $161,400.

The Mazury Orlen Grand Slam in Stare Jablonki was the last of a FIVB-record eight grand slam events this season. The 2012 FIVB SWATCH World Tour is offering a total purse of $6.13 million in prize money and featured 11 events for men and 12 events for women, as well as the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The Mazury Orlen Grand Slam in Stare Jablonki, Poland was the 242nd women’s event and 282nd men’s event on the FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Tour (open, grand slam, Olympic and Goodwill) schedule.  The first men’s FIVB SWATCH World Tour event was played February 17-22, 1987 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the first women’s event was played August 14-16, 1992 at Almeria, Spain.

For more information on the FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour, please visit www.fivb.org.

2012 FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour
Men’s Final Point Leaders
Men (Team Rank, points)
1. Jake Gibb/Sean Rosenthal, United States, 5,280
2. Alison Cerutti/Emanuel Rego, Brazil, 5,180
3. Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers, United States, 4,120
4. Pedro Cunha/Ricardo Santos, Brazil, 3,920
4. Reinder Nummerdor/Richard Schuil, Netherlands, 3,920
6. Marcio Araujo/Pedro Salgado, Brazil, 3,760
7. Matt Fuerbringer/Nick Lucena, United States, 3,640
8. Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik, Germany, 3,240
9. Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Ruslans Sorokins, Latvia, 2,920
10. Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai, Italy, 2,780
11. Martins Plavins/Janis Smedins, Latvia, 2,660
12. Benjamin Insfran/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Brazil, 2,480
13. Emiel Boersma/Daan Spijkers, Netherlands, 2,280
13. Sebastian Dollinger/Stefan Windscheif, Germany, 2,280
15. Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel, Poland, 2,080
16. Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera, Spain, 1,980
17. Sebastian Chevallier/Sascha Heyer, Switzerland, 1,860
18. Penggen Wu/Linyin Xu, China, 1,820
19. Alexandr Dyachenko/Alexey Sidorenko, Kazakhstan, 1,780
20. David Klemperer/Eric Koreng, Germany, 1,724
21. Petr Benes/Premysl Kubala, Czech Republic, 1,660
21. Tarjei Skarlund/Martin Spinnangr, Norway, 1,660
23. Jon Stiekema/Christiaan Varenhorst, Netherlands, 1,640
24. Michal Kadziola/Jakub Szalankiewicz, Poland, 1,580

NOTE - The 2012 FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour champions are being determined by calculating the points for a team’s best 8 men’s and 9 women’s finishes based on 75 percent of the 11 men’s and 12 women’s events (Open, World Championship and Grand Slam events only) staged during season and rounded down.

2012 FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour
Men’s Final Money Leaders
Men (Team Rank, events, titles, US earnings) *includes Olympic participation
1. Jake Gibb/Sean Rosenthal, United States, 12*, 2, $240,100
2. Alison Cerutti/Emanuel Rego, Brazil, 10*, 2, $224,000
3. Reinder Nummerdor/Richard Schuil, Netherlands, 10*, 2, $168,400
4. Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers, United States, 9*, 2, $161,400
5. Pedro Cunha/Ricardo Santos, Brazil, 10*, 2, $148,400
6. Marcio Araujo/Pedro Salgado, Brazil, 11, 0, $131,400
7. Matt Fuerbringer/Nick Lucena, United States, 11, 0, $120,000
8. Martins Plavins/Janis Smedins, Latvia, 10*, 1, $95,950
9. Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai, Italy, 9*, 0, $91,100
10. Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik, Germany, 10*, 0, $91,000
11. Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Ruslans Sorokins, Latvia, 12*, 0, $88,800
12. Benjamin Insfran/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Brazil, 8, 0, $68,800
13. Emiel Boersma/Daan Spijkers, Netherlands, 9, 0, $66,500
14. Sebastian Dollinger/Stefan Windscheif, Germany, 11, 0, $63,500
15. Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel, Poland, 7*, 0, $62,400
16. Adrian Gavira/Pablo Herrera, Spain, 8*, 0, $57,500
16. Sebastian Chevallier/Sascha Heyer, Switzerland, 9*, 0, $57,500
18. Penggen Wu/Linyin Xu, China, 9*, 0, $50,900
19. Petr Benes/Premysl Kubala, Czech Republic, 9*, 0, $49,500
20. Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst, Austria, 8*, 0, $49,200
21. Tarjei Skarlund/Martin Spinnangr, Norway, 10*, 0, $48,250
22. Alexandr Dyachenko/Alexey Sidorenko, Kazakhstan, 8, 0, $47,950
23. Jon Stiekema/Christiaan Varenhorst, Netherlands, 9, 0, $45,700
24. David Klemperer/Eric Koreng, Germany, 8, 0, $45,500

Men’s FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour All-Time Point Champions
Season Point Champions
1989-90 Sinjin Smith/Randy Stoklos, United States
1990-91 Smith/Stoklos, United States
1991-92 Smith/Stoklos, United States
1992-93 Smith/Stoklos, United States
1993-94 Franco Neto/Roberto Lopes, Brazil
1994-95 Jan Kvalheim/Bjorn Maaseide, Norway
1995-96 Franco/Roberto Lopes, Brazil
1996 ZeMarco de Melo/Emanuel Rego, Brazil
1997 ZeMarco/Emanuel, Brazil
1998 Para Ferreira /Guilherme Marquez, Brazil
1999 Emanuel/Jose Loiola, Brazil
2000 ZeMarco/Ricardo Santos, Brazil
2001 Emanuel/Tande Ramos, Brazil
2002 Mariano Barcetti/Martin Conde, Argentina
2003 Emanuel/Ricardo, Brazil
2004 Emanuel/Ricardo, Brazil
2005 Emanuel/Ricardo, Brazil
2006 Emanuel/Ricardo, Brazil
2007 Emanuel/Ricardo, Brazil
2008 Harley Marques/Pedro Salgado, Brazil
2009 Julius Brink/Jonas Reckermann, Germany
2010 Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers, United States
2011 Alison Cerutti, Emanuel, Brazil
2012 Jake Gibb/Sean Rosenthal, United States