Lausanne, Switzerland, January 31, 2018 – FIVB President Dr. Ary S. Graça F° met with the Beach Volleyball Commission today, focusing on the great achievements of the sport so far and plans for a bright future.
To open the Commission meeting, the FIVB President spoke about the success of the new star structure for the FIVB World Tour. Introduced in 2016, the ranking system makes it possible to deliver the best possible events for the athletes, fans and sponsors, as well as providing an increased number of opportunities for countries to host beach volleyball events.
President Graça said:
“As we reach the second season of the FIVB World Tour with the new star structure in place, we can already see that it is working. In the 2016-2017 season, the World Tour had 19 events, whereas this season we have already secured 43 stops, with some news countries like Cambodia, Czech Republic, France, India, Korea, Malaysia, Oman, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, appearing on the beach volleyball map for the first time.
“Many countries that hosted a 3-star event last season have decided to upgrade their competition to 4-star this year. This includes The Hague, Moscow and Xiamen, among others. As we always put the interests of the athletes first, we have also secured an increase in World Tour prize money, from 4 million USD last season to 6.5 million USD for the 2017-2018 edition.”
In order to ensure a large number of potential partners interested in hosting and promoting beach volleyball events and maximise success, in 2017 the FIVB created the New Events Business Department, which is made up of dedicated and experienced professionals and headed by Angelo Squeo.
President Graça and the Commission also discussed the huge success of the 2017 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in Vienna, Austria, which welcomed over 180,000 spectators throughout 10 days of world class action. It was recently announced that the 2019 edition of the FIVB’s flagship event will be hosted in Hamburg, Germany. It will showcase the great appeal and popularity of beach volleyball in the country, which is also going to stage the 2018 FIVB World Tour Finals later this season.
State-of-the-art technology, such as the Challenge System, was in place for the key FIVB beach volleyball events and the FIVB President was delighted to share with the Commission the updated statistics that clearly shows that this innovation has improved officiating dramatically. During the 2016-2017 edition of the FIVB World Tour, 192 challenges were requested by the teams with 63 of them being successful – a 32.8% success rate. At the 2017 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, 27.7 % of challenges out of the total 83 were successful.
Among other topics discussed during the meeting was the continued preparations for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, where beach volleyball will be played in a temporary, 12,000-capacity arena in Shiokaze Park with a backdrop of the iconic Rainbow Bridge.
Related links of AVC
AVC Website: click www.asianvolleyball.net
AVC Facebook: click www.Facebook.com/AsianVolleyballConfederation
AVC Twitter: click: https://twitter.com/avcvolley
AVC Instagram: click: https://www.instagram.com/avcvolley/?hl=en
AVC Youtube: click: Asian Volleyball Confederation