The second edition of the Tour will return to some iconic venues and see beach volleyball visit exciting new locations
The Doha Elite16 tournament got the second season of the Beach Pro Tour officially underway just three days after the previous successful inaugural season was brought to a close in the Qatari capital. The best international beach volleyball players started the fierce battle for valuable points at the Doha Elite16 with the 2023 edition of the Tour set to play a key role in the Olympic qualification race for Paris 2024.
In addition to the season opener of Beach Pro Tour 2023, Doha is also set to host the closing event, the 2023 Beach Pro Tour Finals in December. It will be the second consecutive time the Finals will visit Qatar, after the Gulf country delivered an excellent first tournament in January.
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A look at the podiums at the Doha Finals would probably unveil some of the teams expected to play a leading role on the road to Paris 2024. In the women’s competition, the recently reunited American pair of Kelly Cheng & Sara Hughes topped the standings, which meant they took three gold medals out of their first three appearances on Tour. Another reunited duo, 2014 Youth Olympic champions Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) & Ana Patricia Ramos of Brazil, who joined forces again for the start of the 2022 season, went on to win the 2022 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship in Rome and finished the year as the number one team in the FIVB World Ranking, had to settle for silver at the Tour Finals. The bronze went to one of the most consistent women’s teams in 2022, Katja Stam & Raisa Schoon of the Netherlands.
Norway’s Anders Mol & Christian Sorum became the first-ever Beach Pro Tour champions on the men’s side, adding to their titles of incumbent world and Olympic champions and consolidating their status as the number one team in the world. The other team that managed to take as many gold medals (four) during the first Beach Pro Tour season as the Beachvolley Vikings, Poland’s Michal Bryl & Bartosz Losiak, earned the silver medals at the Doha Finals. The bronze went to the Italian pairing of experienced three-time Olympian Paolo Nicolai and 24-year-old talent Samuele Cottafava.
Mol & Sorum started the Beach Pro Tour 2023 season with a hard-fought three-set win over Nicolai & Cottafava in Doha
With its top-tier tournaments, the Elite16 category, the Beach Pro Tour 2023 will return to Uberlandia…
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