The Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour will return to many of its well-known locations with Elite16 or Challenge events during its third season in 2024. The globe-trotting circuit, introduced in 2022, will also visit destinations like Xiamen, Stare Jablonki and Vienna that are new to the Tour, yet iconic venues in the history of beach volleyball, as well as expand international beach volleyball geography to venues that will welcome world-level events for the first time.
The first half of the new season, until June 10, will continue to be marked with the extra incentive, those precious Olympic qualification points on the road to Paris 2024. And just like in 2021, Ostrava in Czechia will organize the last tournament that will count towards the ranking race for the Olympic tickets, as it welcomes an Elite16 tournament from June 5 to 9.
Once again, the season will start and end in Doha. Just like in 2022, the first Elite16 event will take place in the Qatari capital, from March 5 to 9, and the Beach Pro Tour will return to the Gulf city for the Finals from December 5 to 8.
From the Middle East, the 2024 Beach Pro Tour will move to Latin America, where several high-level tournaments will be held in March and April. The Tour will return to Saquarema in Brazil for a Challenge event in March and to Tepic in Mexico for an Elite16 event in April. The Brazilian city of Recife will also welcome a Challenge event in March, 28 years after holding its only previous world-level tournament, the women’s Brazil Open on the 1996 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, while the Mexican city of Guadalajara will organize a Challenge stop in April, its first-ever world-level event.
After this Latin American leg, the Beach Pro Tour will round off its April programme with a Challenge event in Xiamen. The Chinese city, which hosted a number of World Tour tournaments in the past, will welcome a Beach Pro Tour stop for the first time.
Another venue that has hosted many top-calibre beach volleyball competitions in history, including the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, Stare Jablonki in Poland, also appears on the Beach Pro Tour calendar for the first time, setting the stage for a Challenge tournament in May and June, one of several high-level stops in Europe between late May and late August.
This European leg will start just before that from Portugal, where an Elite16 tournament will be held at a venue yet to be determined.
After the Ostrava Elite16 puts the final touches on the Olympic Ranking in June, Elite16 events will also be held at emblematic European venues like Gstaad in Switzerland and Vienna in Austria in July, before the focus turns to the Olympic Games in Paris, and then also in Hamburg in Germany in late August. Having hosted the World Championships in 2017, a couple of top-level World Tour events in the next two years, as well as the CEV European Championships in 2021 and 2023, the Austrian capital will now be part of the Beach Pro Tour calendar for the first time.
From Hamburg, the beach volleyball elite will fly to another northern city, but in the western hemisphere. At the end of August, Montreal in Canada will host an Elite16 tournament for the second time.
Returning to high-level action in the fall, the Beach Pro Tour will go back to Joao Pessoa in Brazil in October, to India (venue to be determined) in November and to Nuvali in the Philippines in November and December for the last Challenge stops of the season, before it culminates with December’s Finals in Doha.
As Volleyball World continues to work with potential organizers, more exciting high-level tournaments may be added to the 2024 Beach Pro Tour calendar in the weeks to come.
