Lausanne, Switzerland, February 16, 2020 - After hosting a women's event the past two seasons on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh stages a men's only international tournament this week starting Thursday with the qualification round.
The eighth men's event on the 2019-2020 international beach volleyball calendar and the third in 2020, the Phnom Penh tournament will feature a 24-team main draw pool play schedule Friday followed by elimination rounds Saturday and the final four matches Sunday where the winning team will share the $4,000 first-place prize.
The Anchor Beach Volleyball Carnival marks the third men's FIVB World Tour event in Cambodia with the first two being held in Kg Speu and Siem Reap in 2019 where teams from Russia (Maxim Sivolap/Artem Yarzutkin) and Austria (Christoph Dressler/Alexander Huber) topped the podiums.
Dressler and Huber, who captured the 2019 Anchor Beach Volleyball Carnival event in Siem Reap, are in the 2020 Phnom Penh field along with six other teams that have won FIVB World Tour gold medals. Huber, a Rio 2010 Olympian, and Dressler have two World Tour titles to their credit with the second being a July 2019 gold medal at Qidong, China.
Other podium-topping pairs scheduled to compete this week are Christopher McHugh/Damien Schumann of Australia (2017 Shepparton), Moritz Kindl/Mathias Seiser of Austria (2019 Vaduz), Armin Dollinger/Simon Kulzer of Germany (2019 Visakhapatnam), Masato Kurasaka/Kensuke Shoji of Japan (2019 Rubavu), Anton Kislytsyn/Daniil Kuvichka of Russia (2019 Langkawi) and Narongdet Kangkon/Banlue Nakprakhong of Thailand (2019 Boracay) and Denys Denysenko/Vladyslav Iemelianchyk of the Ukraine (2019 Satun).
Vladyslav Iemelianchyk (left) and Denys Denysenko of the Ukraine
McHugh and Schumann will be playing in their first international beach volleyball event since April 2018 when the pair topped the podium at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in Australia. Prior to the Commonwealth win, McHugh and Schumann had played in 14 World Tour events together with a 32-22 match mark.
David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden are also entered as the pair are the reigning Youth Olympic champions after capturing the title in 2019 in Buenos Aires. The young Swedes has also netted a World Tour bronze medal last November in Qatar where Ahman and Hellvig defeated Kurasaka and Shoji in pool play.
Reigning Youth Olympic champions David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig of Sweden
Following the Phnom Penh stop, the FIVB World Tour takes a break for a week before resuming play for a women's-only event March 5-8 in Guam. The men return to action for back-to-back tournaments in Iran (March 3-7 at Bandar Abbas) and Qatar (March 12-15 at Doha). Double gender FIVB events in March are set for Malaysia (March 12-15 at Langkawi), Australia (March 18-22 at Coolangatta) and Mexico (March 25-29 at Cancun).