Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 16, 2016 – With less than 100 days until the start of the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games work has begun on the construction of the beach volleyball venue at Copacabana Beach.
Diggers moved in on Friday to begin construction of the temporary 12,000-capacity arena at beach volleyball’s spiritual home where this year’s men’s and women’s Olympic champions will be crowned.
Once completed the arena will feature a centre court where matches will take place, five training courts and two warm-up courts.
Brazilian beach volleyball fans have been quick to snap up tickets for the sixth consecutive Games in which beach volleyball has featured and they had a taste of what is to come at Rio 2016 when the city hosted an FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Grand Slam in March, which over 140,000 fans attended.
Beach volleyball has been among the most in-demand tickets, behind the opening and closing ceremonies, volleyball and athletics.
It is now 30 years since Rio de Janeiro first hosted an international beach volleyball event when 5,000 spectators flocked to Copacabana Beach. A year later the city hosted its first FIVB-sanctioned event at Ipanema and in 1992 Rio organised a mixed gender tournament having previously hosted men-only events.
After that first FIVB-sanctioned tournament in 1987, Rio has organised 16 men’s tournaments and nine women’s.
Since beach volleyball entered the Olympic Games at Atlanta 1996 there have been one set of winners in both the men’s and women’s competitions. Jackie Silva and Sandra Pires won the inaugural gold at Atlanta 1996 and at Athens 2004 Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos became Olympic champions a year after being crowned FIVB world champions.
At Rio 2016 the beach volleyball will run from the day after the opening ceremony, Saturday August 6 until Thursday August 18, when the men’s gold medal takes place. The women’s gold medal match takes place a day earlier on August 17.
