Beach Shorts

Hello, beach volleyball fans! Welcome back to another edition of Beach Shorts, where we’ll update you on everything that (not) happened in the sport over the last few days.

Unfortunately the week was marked with more cancellations and postponements as the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact the entire planet, but there’s some more you need to know about it and here are the latest updates:

Gstaad Major and Espinho Open cancelled

The two most important events of the World Tour calendar in July have been cancelled as both the Gstaad Major and the Espinho Open will not happen in 2020. It will be the first time since 1999 that the Swiss Alps won’t host a beach volleyball event while the Portuguese coastal city was preparing for its 17^th international tournament.

 

 

 

 

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Kein Swatch Major Gstaad 2020😢Aufgrund der Situation rund um das Coronavirus musste das Turnier abgesagt werden. Ausserdem sagt die FIVB alle Turniere bis Ende Juli ab👉www.volleyball.ch/ 🏐🇨🇭🏐🇨🇭🏐🇨🇭🏐🇨🇭🏐🇨🇭🏐🇨🇭 Pas de coup de sifflet au Tournoi Swatch Major à Gstaad cette année 😢En raison de la situation actuelle due au coronavirus, la Fédération Internationale de Volleyball FIVB a décidé aujourd'hui d'annuler le tournoi 5* de Gstaad et tous les autres tournois en juillet 2020👉www.volleyball.ch/fr/ #SwissVolley #Beachvolleyball #GstaadMajor #SeeYouNextYear

A post shared by Swiss Volley (@swiss.volley) on Apr 6, 2020 at 7:26am PDT

Continental Cup Finals in Asia postponed

The Asian Federation confirmed the postponement of the semifinals and finals of the Continental Cup, which were supposed to happen in back-to-back weeks from June 20-28. Both events were set to be played in Wuhan, which became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in China a few weeks ago.

Kenya claims for Continental Cup replay in Africa

The Kenyan Volleyball Federation has requested the African Federation to replay the phase two of the Continental Cup. The events happened last month, when the coronavirus pandemic was starting to spread around the world, and several nations made the decision of not traveling to avoid the risk, therefore being eliminated.

Social Media: Re-watch the 2019 World Championships

The FIVB has been re-airing several matches of last year’s Beach Volleyball World Championships on its Youtube channel so you can relive the amazing atmosphere in Hamburg. Here’s one of them, which features eventual winners Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov of Russia and Americans Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb.

See you next week!