Plenty of teams chasing their Olympic dreams are set to compete in Qatar
Qatar’s Ahmed in spectacular action during the 2023 Doha Finals
The Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour is just about to pick up from where it left off. The first big stop after December’s 2023 Finals in Doha is set to take place next week, again in the Qatari capital, ready to host the first Elite16 event of 2024 from March 5 to 9.
· Watch the Doha Elite16 qualifications live on the Beach Volleyball World channel.
· Watch the Doha Elite16 main draw live on VBTV.
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As the world’s highest-calibre teams get together for the first time after the off-season, it will be exciting to see them in battle for Elite16 honours again, but as usual during the final stages of the Olympic qualification process, a lot of the focus will fall on the race for Paris 2024 tickets. In each gender, 17 of these tickets will be issued through the Olympic ranking and high-level Beach Pro Tour events offer plenty of precious points towards that ranking.
And the Doha Elite16 is no exception…
While the teams already placed high in the provisional Olympic rankings can be quite certain of making it among the Paris 2024 participants, it will be most interesting to follow the pairs in the gray area around the cut-off line or the pairs from nations with more than two solid candidates for the maximum of two spots per country.
Watch out for countries’ third-ranked women’s teams!
One such case is Switzerland, which has three strong women’s duos racing with each other for two Olympic tickets. Currently, Nina Brunner & Tanja Huberli are below the other two in the women’s ranking, but they are the only one of the three, pre-seeded to compete in the Doha Elite16 main draw. They will compete in Pool A with strong opposition from the world’s number one team Eduarda Santos Lisboa (Duda) & Ana Patricia Ramos of Brazil and Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallists Taliqua Clancy & Mariafe Artacho Del Solar of Australia.
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The other two Swiss teams currently with more points than Brunner & Huberli – Esmee Bobner & Zoe Verge-Depre and Tokyo 2020 bronze medallists Joana Mader & Anouk Verge-Depre – will be among the 16 pairs vying for the four main draw vacancies through Tuesday’s qualifiers.
Pool B features USA’s Taryn Kloth & Kristen Nuss, Brazil’s Barbara Seixas & Carol Solberg…
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