The Beach Volleyball World Tour Council for World Championships and Grand Slams was one of four meetings that took place at the FIVB in Lausanne last week.

Lausanne, Switzerland, November 12, 2012 – The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) completed a week-long series of meetings on Friday, which included a Continental Cup/ World Cup workshop, the FIVB Beach Volleyball Commission, FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Council for Grand Slam events and FIVB World Championships, and the FIVB Beach Volleyball Council for Open Events.

The participants of the Continental Cup / World Cup workshop reviewed the results of the first edition of the competition and brainstormed about the scheme of the next cycle.
 
The FIVB Beach Volleyball Commission – composed of more members representing all five Continental Confederations as of this year – assessed the structure of future beach volleyball events, the integration of each level of events through the FIVB World Ranking and the continuous activation of beach volleyball worldwide. Taking into account the current world financial crisis, the FIVB has committed to creating a sustainable model for international beach volleyball events.

As a result of these meetings, the FIVB will continue developing the Continental Cup and World Cup, which in their first edition involved 143 countries.

Meanwhile, the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Council was presented with the beach volleyball events scheme, positioning Grand Slam events as the FIVB`s elite property, and the Open events as the intermediate property providing more opportunities for athletes worldwide.

In the meeting that took place on Thursday, the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Council for World Championships and Grand Slams, also confirmed that the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships will take place from July 1 to 7 next year in Stare Jablonki, Poland.

The 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, which is staged every two years, will be the ninth edition of the men’s and women’s beach volleyball event in its current format. Brazil’s Emanuel Rego and Alison Cerutti claimed the men’s title in Rome in 2011 while compatriots Larissa França and Juliana Felisberta Da Silva were crowned women’s champions. The first edition of the FIVB Men`s World Championship was held in 1987 and a FIVB Women`s World Championship in 1992.

Poland has an extensive history of hosting beach volleyball events with the Myslowice Open and the Mazury Orlen Grand Slam in Stare Jablonki having been regular tournaments on the World Tour. It has also hosted the 2011 FIVB Volleyball World League Finals in Gdansk-Sopot and will host the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship in 2014.

Other key discussion points from last week’s meetings included the formation of a tentative FIVB Beach Volleyball calendar for 2013 with a confirmed schedule expected to be announced by mid-December. In a key development, the calendar is expected to be split into 10 Grand Slam events with up to 18 Open tournaments taking place alongside over a period of 10 months. The following countries expressed their interest in hosting a Grand Slam: Brazil, China, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, USA, Germany, Russia, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia.

The Grand Slam will benefit from the participation of the top ranked teams while the Open will have certain limitations to give athletes at all levels a chance to participate.

The Open events will be staged in five continents in order to develop an intermediate property. If all organisers will confirm their intent, it will form the best calendar in history, where all the events including World Championships, the World Tour, the Continental Cup and the World Cup will count towards the Olympic qualification for Rio 2016.

The tentative 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball schedule also foresees a week every month that is free of any FIVB events to allow for the development of beach volleyball events at the national and continental level.

Progress reports were received from the FIVB 2015 Beach Volleyball World Championships, which will be held in the Netherlands. In 2013, a new competition, the Under 23 World Championships, has been added to the FIVB`s beach volleyball international events calendar. The 2013 Junior World Championships will be held in Croatia. The host countries for the 2013 Youth and Under 23 World Championships are expected to be confirmed in the coming weeks.