Gold Coast, Australia, March 1, 2020 – International beach volleyball will stop at Coolangatta Beach when the venue on the Gold Coast in Queensland hosts an FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 3-Star double gender tournament from March 18-22.
Local favourites Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy are seeded first in the women's draw having won gold at the Chetumal 4-Star in November.
Entry list - Women
Triple Olympic champion Kerri Walsh Jennings and Brooke Sweat are third seeds. Their most recent podium finish came at the Qinzhou 3-Star in November where they won silver.
USA's Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena top the men's seedings, while Chilean cousins Marco and Esteban Grimalt are seeded fourth a year on from winning the World Tour event in Sydney.
Entry list - Men
Coolangatta Beach lies at the southern tip of the Gold Coast and 105 kilometres from Brisbane. The tournament will be the third 3-Star World Tour event on the 2019-20 calendar.
In 2018, Gold Coast provided a spectacular setting for beach volleyball when it made its Commonwealth Games debut. A 5,000-capacity stadium was built and was filled throughout the tournament.
Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan won women’s gold one year before becoming FIVB Beach Volleyball world champions, while local favourites Damian Schumann and Christopher McHugh sent the home crowd wild with victory in the men’s event.
2019-2020 FIVB Beach Volleyball Calendar – Click to download
The current World Tour season runs from October 2019 to August 2020, while the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games beach volleyball tournament will feature 24 teams per gender in competition from Saturday July 25 to Saturday August 8. The World Tour visits Guam this week before moving to Doha in Qatar for the first 4-star event of 2020.