Men’s Olympic Beach Volleyball Preview: Can Anyone Stop Scandinavia?

When Anders Mol and Christian Sorum won 18 gold medals over a stretch of 26 tournaments from 2018-2023, including a World Championship and a record-breaking four consecutive European Championships, it was widely considered to be a run of dominance the beach volleyball world was unlikely to ever see again.

We’re seeing it again.

David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig, Sweden’s indefatigable, electrifying duo, are still four years from proving they can sustain the level of play Norway did for six straight seasons. But what they have done since sweeping Mol and Sorum in the gold medal match of the 2023 Tepic Elite16 — their second win over Norway — is certifiably Norwegian. Since that win in Tepic, Sweden has gone on to win eight more golds, including a second straight European Championship, and is currently on a streak of 10 consecutive finals, four straight golds, and a 16-match unbeaten streak.

As the Paris Olympics approach this week, with the first match Saturday afternoon, it presents the inevitable question: Who is the favorite, the 22-year-old Swedes who have revolutionized the way the beach game is played, leaving the rest of the world in a futile search for answers that cannot be found, or Norway, the defending Olympic gold medalists who ushered in the current era of Scandinavian dominance?

Perhaps the better question: Does the rest of the field have a chance at gold?

David Ahman, Jonatan Hellvig, and a 44-percent shot at gold

The oddsmakers, and volleyball sabermatrician Brian Cook’s one million simulations of the Olympic Games via his analytical site, TruVolley, both, unsurprisingly, favor Sweden. Ahman and Hellvig are the world No. 1 by nearly 2,000 points, with Mol and Sorum a distant second. BetOnline has Sweden at +115 to win gold — heavier favorites than even Brazil’s Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa on the women’s side — while Norway is +400. When Cook ran one million simulations of the Olympics, Sweden won gold in 44 percent, made a final in 56 percent, and won a medal in nearly 70 percent. Mol and Sorum defended their Tokyo gold medal in 19 percent of those simulations and won a medal of a different color in another 27 percent.

To see an all-Scandanavian final would be the most fitting gold medal match since perhaps the all-American final of 1996, when Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes squared off with Mike Dodd and Mike Whitmarsh in Atlanta.

To do so will require both exceptional play and…