FIVB executive vice-president Vicente Araujo of Portugal participates in the drawing of lots for Olympic beach volleyball pools Thursday in Klagenfurt during a live telecast throughout Austria for the 24 teams in each gender heading to London.

Klagenfurt, Austria, July 19, 2012 – For 24 men and women beach volleyball teams, the road to the London 2012 Olympic Games got considerably closer Thursday with the drawing of lots to determine the six pool play groups held at the 2012 FIVB Beach Volleyball SWATCH World Tour A1Grand Slam presented by ERGO on Thursday in Klagenfurt, Austria.

The tandems were split equally into six pools, playing each team in their group, with the top two advancing to the single-elimination knockout phase along with the two best third-placed teams. The remaining four third-place teams will then compete in playoff matches to determine which pairs will fill the final two places in the first round.

With the pool designations determined, the actual day-by-day match schedule for pool play will be released by the FIVB and LOCOG by Monday from the FIVB headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. The FIVB and LOCOG are looking to maximize the television exposure taking into consideration the interests of the TV rights holders worldwide for the participating countries and determine the competition schedule accordingly.

Sixteen teams have qualified for the Games through the Olympic Ranking, with five more joining as winners of the AVC, CAVB, CEV, CSV and NORCECA Continental Cup Finals and two from the World Cup Olympic Qualification Tournament. Great Britain has also been granted a berth as hosts.

With many of the 2012 Olympic duos in both genders on hand for the festivities that were held in the spacious VIP building at the Klagenfurt stadium center court, among the dignitaries participating in the drawing, that was televised live throughout Austria and streamed worldwide on the FIVB website was Portugal’s Vicente Araujo, executive vice-president of the FIVB.

Commented Araujo, “It is a privelege for the FIVB to be able to have this prestigious Olympic drawing here in Klagenfurt, Austria, one of the most popular events on the FIVB SWATCH World Tour for the past 16 years.  In this Olympic cycle we have implemented a new formula with teams qualifying from the Olympic ranking, the Continental Cup and the World Cup process and we have teams from all five continents and 142 nations were actively involved in the process. We anticipate another incredible Olympic competition in beach volleyball, one the reflects even more the growing strength of our sport in the world arena.”

One of the other principal speakers was Bobby Clarke, the LOCOG Volleyball Manager. Clarke said, “It’s great to have this special Olympic drawing in Klagenfurt which has such a rich history on the world tour. In London, we have the hottest ticket in the Olympic Games and the most iconic venue of all in Horse Guards Parade.  When you mention the venue, people automatically start talking about beach volleyball. We are looking forward to hosting these amazing athletes for this ultimate international competition.”

Great Britain is seeded no.6 in the Olympic Ranking with the rest of the teams seeded based on the Olympic ranking, Beach Volleyball Continental Cup Final results and the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Cup Olympic Qualification results.

The no.1–no.6 seeding positions were fixed taking into consideration the host country team’s seeding (no.6) and the Olympic ranking. The remaining teams were seeded following the serpentine path through five draws, according to the FIVB regulations.

The sold-out beach volleyball competition at the 2012 London Olympic Games will be held July 28-Aug. 9 in a purpose-built 15,000-set stadium on the grounds of the iconic Horse Guards Parade in central London.

Following are the pool assignments for this year’s beach volleyball competition at the Olympic Games:

2012 Olympic Games Beach Volleyball
MEN’s Pool Assignments
Seed, Team, Country
POOL A
Alison Cerutti/Emanuel Rego, Brazil
Jefferson Bellaguarda/Patrick Heuscher, Switzerland
Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai, Italy
Clemens Doppler/Alexander Horst, Austria

POOL B
Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers, United States
Adrian Gavira Collado/Pablo Herrera, Spain
Petr Benes/Presysl Kubala, Czech Republic
Kentaro Asahi/Katsuhiro Shiratori, Japan

POOL C
Julius Brink/Jonas Reckermann, Germany
Penggen Wu/Linyin Xu, China
Sebastian Chevallier/Sascha Heyer, Switzerland
Serguei Prokopiev/Konstantin Semonov, Russia

POOL D
Jake Gibb/Sean Rosenthal, United States
Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel, Poland
Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Ruslans Sorokins, Latvia
Freedom Chiya/Grant Goldschmit, South Africa

POOL E
Reinder Nummerdor/Richard Schuil, Netherlands
Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik, Germany
Martins Plavins/Janis Smedins, Latvia
Igor Hernandez/Jesus Villafane, Venezuela

POOL F
John Garcia-Thompson/Steven Grotowski, Great Britain
Pedro Cunha/Ricardo Santos, Brazil
Tarjei Skarlund/Martin Spinnangr, Norway
Josh Binstock/Martin Reader, Canada

2012 Olympic Games Beach Volleyball
WOMEN’s Pool Assignments
Seed, Team, Country
POOL A
Juliana Felisberta Silva/Larissa Franca, Brazil
Katrin Hloltwick/Ilka Semmler, Germany
Lenka Hajeckova/Hana Klapalova, Czech Republic
Natacha Rigobert/Elodie Li Yuk Lo, Mauritius

For further information: visit www.fivb.org
Media contact – FIVB Press Director Richard Baker
Email: press@fivb.org

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