The sand is being poured into the new, temporary stadium in Shiokaze Park, which means the competition is warming up as the beach volleyball athletes are preparing to play in the biggest tournament of the year: the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
With players coming from all around the world, they have a lot of talent coming with them as well. There are some young, new players who are in their first Olympics as well as veteran players coming back for a chance to win another gold medal.
So who should you be watching this year? If you can’t watch everyone, then these athletes are some great beach volleyball players to follow at the upcoming Olympic Games.
Debut beach volleyball players looking for success in their first Olympics
Women
Alix Klineman
USA
Alix Klineman is not new to professional volleyball after playing indoor on the USA women’s national team for seven years, yet she just started professionally playing beach in 2017. At the end of the year, she joined forces with April Ross, and they went on to win four tournament events in the 2018 AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour. Even though we won’t get to see Kerri Walsh Jennings play in this year’s Olympics, we can still watch some great USA volleyball with Klineman up at the block.
Duda Santos Lisboa
Brazil
Duda Santos Lisboa is a great beach player, winning four World Tour events, a gold medal at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games and being named FIVB Top Rookie in 2016. This will be her first Olympic Games at the adult level, so it will be exciting to see her put her skills to good work against some of the best in the world.
Men
Oleg Stoyanovskiy
Russia
Oleg Stoyanovskiy is only 24 years old, but has some awards that even veteran players haven’t won yet like gold medals at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship in Hamburg and the World Tour Finals in Rome. In 2019, he became the youngest world champion at age 22 after winning the tournament with his partner, Viacheslav Krasilnikov, who he’s playing with at the upcoming Olympic Games. These two are going to be a strong pair to beat as the competition begins at the end of July.
Anders Mol
Norway
Anders Mol is one half of the Norwegian duo that is taking the…
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