2019-05-29 16:00:00 CEST
The week in the sands of the world
Markus Bockermann will return to the courts in a German Tour event this week (Photocredit: FIVB)
Welcome to another edition of Beach Shorts! On Saturday we officially enter June, the month of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships Hamburg 2019 presented by comdirect and ALDI Nord, and if that alone wasn’t enough reason to get you excited, we have some more stuff that will likely make you bouncing off the walls.
This weekend should be a fun one with a notable German player making his comeback, another stage of continental qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and, of course, World Tour action in multiple locations.
Here’s what we’re talking about!
A German comeback
The German Tour continues at full pace with the third stop of the 2019 season taking place in Nürnberg this week. This will be a special tournament as it will mark the return of Rio 2016 Olympian Markus Bockermann, who retired one year ago. The 33-year-old veteran will pair with Max-Jonas Karpa in the event.
Bockermann last played at last year's World Tour event in Itapema (Photocredit: FIVB)
World Tour in China
By this time you already know that at the international level Ostrava is the place to be this weekend, right? However, the World is also headed to a second location as the Chinese city of Nantong is staging a women-only two-star event which will feature two teams which will compete at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships Hamburg 2019 presented by comdirect and ALDI Nord – Germany’s Leonie Kortzinger/Sarah Schneider and Cuba’s Maylen Tamayo/Leila Martinez – and Rio 2016 Olympian Monika Brzostek of Poland.
Cubans Martinez and Tamayo will be playing in Nantong this weekend (Photocredit: FIVB)
European Continental Cup in Ireland
The Olympic qualification process for European nations continues this week in Bettystown, Ireland, when men’s team from Lithuania, Ukraine, Scotland and Ireland and women’s duos from Slovakia, Denmark, Estonia and Ireland will compete for the pool C of the first phase of the CEV Continental Cup. The best two squads in each gender will move on to the final round, which be played next year in the Netherlands.
Andrea Strbova and Natalia Dubovcova will be Slovakia's main team in Bettystown (Photocredit: FIVB)
Social Media: Behind-the-scenes in Ostrava
Maybe you ever wondered what it takes to build a beach volleyball stadium from scratch, right? Our good friends from Ostrava released a cool video showing how they assembled the venue that’s hosting the elite of the sport this week in a very unique location. Check it out!
In case you missed it
Seeding for the World Championships released
Get back in time and find out who claimed the swords at the 2009 World Champs
See you next week!