The race for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games officially began in February 2023 in Doha, Qatar, with the Volleyball World Elite16. The 2024 season began the first week of March back in Doha, and the final event of the Olympic qualification cycle will be the Ostrava Elite16, which ends on June 9. We’ll be providing these updates for the Beach Volleyball Olympic rankings after international points-earning tournaments: The rise of Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz has been as swift as it has been astonishing. Entering the 2024 beach volleyball season, they had less than 4,000 Olympic points to their ..read more

The idea was to medal in Guadalajara. For Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli to play their first Challenge event in two years. To feel the pressure of being the one seed, the expectations of a medal. Of getting every team’s best shot, and to hand it right back, that their best wasn’t good enough. It didn’t work. It worked out better than planned. Brunner and Huberli did not medal in last weekend’s Guadalajara Challenge. Instead, they finished ninth, upset by qualifiers Sophie Bukovec and Heather Bansley. But those reps? That loss? They paved the way for a far bigger moment: A gold medal at this we ..read more

UCLA’s Merrick McHenry being Merrick McHenry against USC/Ken Williams photo Fourth-seeded Lindenwood stunned top-seeded Ball State on Thursday in the MIVA semifinals, bouncing the Cardinals in five sets to advance to Saturday’s championship match. The Lions, in the title tilt for the first time, play third-seeded Ohio State, which beat second-seeded Loyola Chicago in four. Penn State had to go four to beat Harvard, but the Nittany Lions will play George Mason, which swept Charleston, in the EIVA title match Saturday. The top two teams in the MPSF, UCLA and Grand Canyon won and meet in Saturday ..read more

As the Beach Pro Tour season has settled into its early-season stride, hitting consecutive stops in Brazil and another in Mexico, something still felt amiss. Namely, the best players. Almost all of them. Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth have played just four matches this season, Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes six. Miles Partain and Andy Benesh haven’t played at all. Their last appearance was in the Beach Pro Tour Finals in December. The spring months have been a test of patience thus far for those seeded directly into the main draws of Elite16s. Champagne problems, to say the least. These are the pai ..read more

HERMOSA BEACH, California — In the spring of 2015, Mathias Berntsen and Anders Mol, cousins united by blood as much by a hereditary passion for the sport of volleyball, sat down and mapped out the future. There was much to discuss. The members of Norway’s senior national team at the time were aging out. After the 2016 Olympic Games, the future of their country’s success would fall on the shoulders of a handful of unproven teenagers, in a federation with little infrastructure and a resume not long with success. “We sat down and said we have to do something,” Berntsen said. “We didn’t have a sy ..read more

In a beautiful scene on Alki Beach, Boise State’s Anika Christensen, who is from nearby Gig Harbor, hits against Georgia State as teammate Aris Vetter looks on/Stephen Burns photo Another UCLA-USC showdown looms large Thursday as the NCAA beach volleyball regular season winds down. It comes on the heels of UCLA’s 3-2 victory over the Trojans this past Saturday in the loaded Center of Effort Challenge at Cal Poly. UCLA has won two of the three meetings this season between the top two teams in the AVCA Collegiate Beach Poll. Speaking of which: AVCA top 20, POW AVCA COLLEGIATE BEACH POLL: The top ..read more

The race for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games officially began in February 2023 in Doha, Qatar, with the Volleyball World Elite16. The 2024 season began the first week of March back in Doha, and the final event of the Olympic qualification cycle will be the Ostrava Elite16, which ends on June 9. We’ll be providing these updates for the Beach Volleyball Olympic rankings throughout the next two years. Within an hour or so after Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner won gold at the Guadalajara Challenge, the messages came pouring in: Did that seal the deal? Are Crabb and Brunner going to the Paris Olympics ..read more

The response/reaction to the 2024 VolleyballMag Girls Beach Fab 50 and Underclassmen to Watch lists has been impressive, particularly when it comes to the non-senior prospects list. Keep in mind, both the Fab 50 and Underclassmen to Watch lists were voted on by a panel of NCAA women’s beach coaches and prominent club beach coaches. VolleyballMag.com had no input on who made the lists other than to initiate the nomination/voting process and to assemble the final product that has generated so much interest. On a positive note, this year produced the largest voting panel in the history of this en ..read more

The men’s podium, Germany’s Lukas Pfretzschner and Sven Winter, left, Theo Brunner and Trevor Crabb, and Brazil’s Evandro Oliveira and Arthur Mariano/Volleyball World photo GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Theo Brunner had accepted it. While he and Trevor Crabb wouldn’t get a podium finish at the Guadalajara Challenge, “sweet,” Brunner recalled thinking. “We get to rest up for [next week’s Tepic Elite16].” Crabb was less on the sunny side of matters. “We blew it,” he remembered thinking as the score of their quarterfinal against Steven Van de Velde and Matthew Immers drifted further and further into a bl ..read more

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Thursday seemed as good a day as any for Savvy Simo and Abby Van Winkle to win the biggest match of their respective careers. They had already flown to Mexico from playing a NORCECA event in the Dominican Republic for this week’s Beach Pro Tour Guadalajara Challenge. Why not win a few while they were out here? Win they did. The morning match during Thursday’s qualifier came and went easy enough, a 21-10, 21-12 sweep over Japan’s Kana Motomura and Nayu Motomura. But then came the final task, the Boss Level of Challenge qualifiers: Switzerland’s Joana Mader and Anouk Verge ..read more