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08/06/2015

FIVB World Tour moves to Swatch FIVB Major Series in Stavanger, Norway

Lausanne, Switzerland, June 7, 2015 — Back up the rousing success of the first of three new sub-series events, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) travels from Croatia to Norway as the 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour continues the new Swatch FIVB Major Series this week with the US$800,000 Swatch FIVB Stavanger Major, the second of three double-gender Swatch Majors on this year’s schedule. Visiting Stavenger for the 15th time, the FIVB World Tour stop will be held on the purpose-built site at the majestic Vaagen Harbour venue in Norway.

This week’s Swatch FIVB Stavenger Major will start with women’s qualifying on Tuesday followed by women’s pool play Wednesday with men’s qualifying on Wednesday followed by the start of pool play on Thursday. Women’s quarterfinals will be held Friday, semifinals and medal matches on Saturday and men’s quarterfinals on Saturday with their semifinals and medal matches on Sunday. The tournament format has a one-day qualification tournament to determine the final eight spots in each gender’s 32-team main draw tournaments followed by round-robin pool play and a single-elimination bracket for the final 24 teams. Country quota playoffs for women, as needed, will be held on Monday and on Tuesday, as needed, for men.

Following Porec, Croatia last week, and Stavanger this week, the third Swatch FIVB Major Series tournament in 2015 will be held July 7-12 in Gstaad, Switzerland.

Continuing a new sub-series within the FIVB World Tour, a total of 76 men’s teams from 31 countries selected by their national federations and 69 women’s teams from 30 countries selected by their national federations are officially entered in the Olympian-filled field in the second Swatch FIVB Major Series event.

NORWEGIAN HISTORY
Through 2014, Norway has hosted a total of 33 FIVB World Tour events (18 men, 15 women) with 25 being held in Stavanger and eight in Kristiansand with Brazil leading the medal count in both genders. In the men’s totals after 18 events, Brazil has 28, followed by Germany with six, USA with five, Switzerland three, Norway two and with one men’s medal each are Argentina, Australia, China, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia and Spain.

After 15 FIVB World Tour women’s events held in Norway through 2011, Brazil leads the medal parade with 18 total medals followed by the USA with 13, China with five, Austria and Greece with two each and with one each women’s medals are Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the Slovak Republic.

Two American teams won the two gold medals in Stavanger in 2014. Winning the men’s gold was Phil Dalhausser/Sean Rosenthal while capturing the women’s gold was Kerri Walsh Jennings/April Ross.

WELCOME TO STAVENGER
With a population of over 121,000 Stavanger is the third largest city in Norway and sits on the western coast of the country on the North Sea.

TEAM NORWAY
As the host nation, Norway has three men’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw and three reserve teams. Norway’s main draw teams are 22nd –seeded Geir Eithun/Iver Horrem, 23rd-seeded Lars Retterholt/Bjarte Usken, and 24th-seeeded Oivind Hordvik/Morten Kvamsdal.

Men’s teams on the reserve list from Norway are Daniel Bergerud/Svein Solhaug, Mathias Berntsen/Lars Fredrik Tvinde and Runar Sannarnes/Christian Sorum.

As the host nation, Norway has three women’s teams pre-seeded into the main draw and three teams on the women’s reserve list. Norway’s main draw teams are 22nd-seeded Victoria Kjolberg/Janne Kongshavn, 23rd-Janne Pedersen/Cindy Treland, Norway and 24th-seeded Ingrid Lunde/Vilde Solvoll.

Women’s teams on the reserve list from Norway are Hanne Aas/Benedicte Maaseide, Siv Skjong/Oda Ulveseth and Ane Tveit Hjortland/Sunniva Helland-Hansen.

TOP SEEDS
For the Swatch FIVB Stavanger Major, preliminary revised top men’s seeds are Brazil’s top-seeded Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt, Poland’s No. 2 Grzegorz Fijalek/Mariusz Prudel, Brazil’s No. 3 Emanuel Rego/Ricardo Santos, Latvia’s No. 4 Aleksanders Samoilovs/Janis Smedins, USA’s No. 5 Tri Bourne/John Hyden, Italy’s No. 6 Daniele Lupo/Paolo Nicolai, Netherlands’ No. 7 Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst, USA’s No. 8 Sean Rosenthal/Stafford Slick, Germany’s No. 9 Jonathan Erdmann/Kay Matysik and Brazil’s No. 10 Evandro Goncalves/Pedro Salgado.

For the Swatch FIVB Stavenger Major, preliminary revised top women’s seeds are Brazil’s top-seeded Talita Antunes/Larissa Franca, Germany’s No. 2 Katrin Holtick/Ilka Semmler, Czech Republic’s No. 3 Kristyna Kolocova/Marketa Slukova, USA’s No. 4 April Ross/Kerri Walsh Jennings, Brazil’s No. 5 Agatha Bednarczuk/Barbara Seixas, Brazil’s No. 6 Maria Antonelli/Juliana Felisberta, Netherlands’ No. 7 Madelein Meppelink/Marleen Van Iersel, Spain’s No. 8 Elsa Baquerizo/Liliana Fernandez, Germany’s No. 9 Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst and China’s No. 10 Fan Wang/Yuan Yue.

SWATCH FIVB STAVENGER MAJOR PURSE
The gold medal team in the Swatch FIVB Stavenger Major will split $57,000, the silver $43,000, the bronze $32,000 and fourth place $24,000. The men’s quarterfinals and the women’s semifinals and medial matches will all be played on Saturday with the men’s semifinals and medal matches on Sunday.

FIVB WORLD TOUR BREAKDOWN
The 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour schedule will include five FIVB Grand Slams, the new Swatch FIVB Major Series of three events, six FIVB Opens and a special Swatch FIVB World Tour Season Final in the United States. The showcase event will be the $1 million 2015 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in the Netherlands (June 26-July 5).

A total of 15 countries will host events this year as the 2015 FIVB World Tour also begins the Olympic qualification process with all FIVB World Tour events (except the FIVB World Tour Finals) in 2015 up until June 13, 2016 counting towards the Olympic Ranking in order to determine 15 spots for each gender that will take part in each 24-team field in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

FIVB WORLD TOUR PURSES
The FIVB Grand Slam and Swatch FIVB Major Series competitions, all double-gender each have $800,000 in total purses. The total purse FIVB World Championships the Netherlands 2015 will be $1,000,000 and $500,000 total for the Swatch FIVB World Tour Season Final which will feature the top eight teams in each gender.

The nine FIVB Open tournaments in 2015, seven double-gender, one men only and one women only, will have $150,000 total purses for the double gender events and $75,000 for the single-gender competitions.

FIVB EVENT FORMAT
Implemented in 2013, the format of all the FIVB Beach Volleyball international tournaments – whether FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam or FIVB Beach Volleyball Open – are the same, featuring pool play followed by single elimination knockout rounds. Country Quota playoffs will return as needed in 2015 to determine the final teams for the qualification tournament.

ON THE HORIZON
Following this week’s second of three Swatch FIVB Major Series events on the 2015 FIVB calendar continues with the $800,000 Swatch FIVB Stavanger Major in Norway-June 8-14 followed by a trip to Florida in the United States for the $800,000 FIVB St. Petersburg Grand Slam (June 15-21).

The dynamic month of beach volleyball will conclude with the $1,000,000 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships The Netherlands (June 26-July 5) being anchored in The Hague with pool play and the first two rounds of single-elimination also being played in Amsterdam, Apeldoorn and Rotterdam.

GROWING HISTORY
The Swatch FIVB Porec Major will be the 319th men’s event since the FIVB began men’s competition in 1987 and the 283rd FIVB women’s tournament since they started in 1992.

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