Where and when the beach elite will hit the sand next season

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The wait is over and we can reveal the eagerly anticipated Beach Volleyball Major Series calendar for 2019.

The world’s best beach volleyball stars will return to the sand next year for more digging, diving, serving and spiking and goosebumps are guaranteed as the series returns for its fifth installment.

Olympic and World Champions will fight for the highest prize money and ranking points on the FIVB World Tour as the beach elite begin to collect important points that go towards their aim of reaching the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Fun in the sun in Florida will kick-off the new beach volleyball season, with the Fort Lauderdale Major taking place between February 5-10. Last year’s tournament saw home heroes and golden oldies Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena take the top prize in the men’s tournament, while Barbara Seixas and Fernanda Berti Alves won gold for Brazil on US sand in the women’s event.

The next port of call for the beach elite in the Major Series calendar is the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, which heads to Hamburg – the home of the reigning champions, Kira Walkenhorst and Laura Ludwig. The winners of the tournament, which runs for 10 days from June 28 to July 7 – book an automatic ticket for Tokyo 2020 so all eyes will be on the Rothenbaum for what promises to be the biggest beach volleyball event in German history.

From Hamburg’s harbor, the World Tour then makes its annual pilgrimage 1,000 meters above sea level to the picturesque setting high in the Swiss Alps to Gstaad. The 2018 tournament saw two new winners of the golden cowbell, as Anders Mol and Christian Sørum of Norway and Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan topped the podium. Can both sets of teams make it back-to-back golden cowbells?

The curtain on another breathtaking season on the sand will then come down with another helping of beach volleyball in the Austrian capital, Vienna. After the success of the World Championships in 2017 in the city, the love for the sport continued at the 2018 Major where hundreds of thousands of fans flocked to the Danube Island location for a week of brilliant action.

Beach Majors Series calendar details:

February 5-10: Fort Lauderdale, USA

June 28 – July 7: FIVB World Championships, Hamburg, Germany

July 9-14: Gstaad, Switzerland

July 31 – August 4: Vienna, Austria