Tokyo Tracker: A wild race for the women's final few qualifying bids

Parity has been, and remains, the most popular word used to sum up the beach volleyball world in the past few years. There are simply too many good teams to pick one that is the odds-on favourite in any tournament.

On the women’s side, however, that parity is largely dominated by three countries: Brazil, the United States, and Canada, which combine for nine of the top 10 spots in the provisional Olympic Ranking, while Brazil has two more teams in the next 10. The result has been a wacky Olympic race in which the No. 23-ranked team in the world – Joy Stubbe and Marleen van Iersel –  are currently holding onto an Olympic spot. That spot will soon be up for grabs, as Stubbe is, as of this writing, 25 weeks pregnant and no longer competing, and certainly not competing come Tokyo in July and August.

So, at the moment, we will assume that the final Olympic qualification spot via points – the top-15 in the provisional Olympic Ranking are assured a berth into Tokyo – will go to Slovakia’s Andrea Strbova and Natalia Dubovcova, who are currently tied with the Dutch at 5,360 points.

It’s a tenuous spot to hold, not least of all because it is the final qualification bid via points, but because of the number of teams awfully close to those 5,360 Olympic qualification points.

We will get to those teams later, just prior to Cancun. For now, we are taking a look at the gaggle of teams who are in positions similar to Strbova and Dubovcova: enough points to currently hold a spot, but not yet enough to be safely in.

The cutoff for “safely in” likely begins with China’s Wang Xinxin and Xia Xinyi, who hold the No. 10 Olympic spot with 6,060 points. Just below Wang and Xia are Germans Karla Borger and Julia Sude, who skipped Doha after a successful stand against the uniform requirement for the women. Comforting to the Germans, at least, is the fact that Spain’s Elsa Baquerizo and Liliana Fernandez, who are tied with Borger and Sude with 5,960 points, have already qualified via the Olympic Qualification Tournament. Whether Baquerizo and Fernandez pass them or not doesn’t matter.

Of course, there are trickier teams down the line, because why wouldn’t there be? Tied with both Germany and Spain is Australia’s Mariafe Artacho and Taliqua Clancy – despite having only 10 finishes. Twelve are required in order to qualify for the Olympics, and they're signed up for all three events in Cancun. It is an inevitability, then, that Artacho and Clancy will pass the Germans, with the first two finishes in Cancun being directly added to their point total without having to drop a finish.

With the Australians set to move up, no matter how they do in Cancun, it makes for the real chase to begin with the Czech Republic’s Barbora Hermannova and Marketa Slukova (5,940 points), and Russia’s Svetlana Kholomina and Nadezda Makroguzova (5,920 points).  

There is some wiggle room from there. Because Brazil has already selected its Olympic teams, Brazil’s Barbara and Fernanda are no longer taking up a spot in the rankings, which makes the next team in the chase Germany’s Laura Ludwig and Maggie Kozuch (5,660 points). The dangerous aspect of that team is how top-heavy their points are. More than 20 percent of their points (a whopping 1,200) are from a single tournament: winning the World Tour Finals in Rome. Another huge chunk (720) came from a fifth in Vienna. What this means is they have finishes that they can readily replace, making it easier to move up in the ranks.

The odds of Ludwig and Kozuch moving up are quite high.

Which takes us to the next team: Italians Viktoria Orsi Toth and Marta Menegatti. They had a brutal draw in Doha, seeing eventual bronze medallists Agatha and Duda in the second round of pool. It made for an uncharacteristically low 25th-place finish for the Italians, who have 11 finishes between fifth and ninth place since 2019. Similar to Canadians Sam Pedlow and Sam Schachter in the men's category, however, that consistency is why they’re currently holding a qualifying spot, and why it will take a higher finish to improve their standing.

Providing some cushion to Orsi Toth and Menegatti is the fact that Latvians Tina Graudina and Anastasija Kravcenoka, the team ranked below them in points, are already qualified via the Olympic Qualification Tournament. Rather than the next closest team in the race being just 160 points down, then, it’s Stubbe and van Iersel, 260 points down.

All of this is a long way of saying that while the top is thrilling, exciting, scintillating volleyball, some of the most exciting matches, as this Olympic race winds down, will undoubtedly be played for 17th and ninth, where the battle for those final few Olympic spots will be won.

Quick links:
FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour
Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
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