Beach Shorts

Welcome to the month of July, beach volleyball fans! The first edition of Beach Shorts in the second half of the year is right here and ready to update you on what happened over the last few and will happen in the next two or three in the sport.

As Europe continues recovering from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, some national tours are hosting events this week, most noticeably Austria and Latvia. One of the most traditional tours in the continent, though, has decided to suspend play in 2020, but on the other hand September should see the return of a popular beach volleyball event in the Netherlands.

That’s the info for this week and here are all the details:

National Tours in Latvia, Austria and Finland

National Tours remain at full pace in Europe with Austria and Finland continuing their seasons and Latvia kicking it off this weekend. The Champions Cup in Austria will have eight teams in each gender competing in the semifinal round in Graz and Vienna. In Finland, the Tour will have its second event of the season in Kouvola. The Latvian Tour, on the other hand, will open its season in Ventspils with the presence of past and future Olympians, including Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins, Edgars Tocs/Martins Plavins and Tina Graudina/Anastasija Kravcenoka.

Dutch season returns, King of the Court announces event in Utrecht

Beach volleyball returned this week in the Netherlands with the opening event of the country's national tour, a one-day tourament in Zaanstad, which was won by Katja Stam/Raisa Schoon and Dirk Boehlé/Stijn van Tilburg. The King of the Court, a dynamic event that was firth played in 2018, has also announced its return in 2020 with a tournament scheduled for Utrecht from September 9-12. The event will feature 30 teams per gender, including some of the world’s best.

Swiss Tour’s 2020 season in cancelled

One of the most traditional national tours in Europe, the Swiss Tour has decided to suspend the entirety of its 2020 season. The organizers understood that it would be difficult to assure that all health protocols would be respected and decided to cancel all eight tournaments scheduled for the year. It’s still possible, though, that a Swiss Championship event is played later in the year.

 

 

 

 

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Absage Coop Beachtour 2020💔😢 Schweren Herzens wird die Coop Beachtour, die höchste nationale Turnierserie im Beachvolleyball für das Jahr 2020 abgesagt. Die aktuellen Auflagen des Bundes mit Sektoren von maximal 300 Personen können an dem Free Entry Event trotz diverser innovativer Umsetzungskonzepte nicht einwandfrei sichergestellt werden. ➡️Mehr Infos findet Ihr über den Link in der Bio. Le Coop Beachtour 2020 est annulé avec le plus grand regret. La santé des visiteurs, des joueurs, des associations et des employés était au centre de la décision. Malgré divers concepts de mise en œuvre innovants, il ne sera pas possible de garantir que les règlements fédéraux actuels avec des secteurs de 300 personnes maximum soient respectés lors de l'événement à entrée libre. ➡️Vous pouvez trouver des informations plus détaillées en cliquant sur le lien dans la bio #schade #nevergiveup #coopbeachtour

A post shared by Coop Beachtour (@coopbeachtour) on Jun 29, 2020 at 6:11am PDT

Social Media: Troy Field's comic take on split with Casey Patterson

Splits in beach volleybal are often treated as sort of a taboo among players, but American Troy Field decided to approach it in a different way and record his own news report, in which he interviews himself to announce that he would no longer be playing with Casey Patterson, but instead rejoining Tim Bomgren for the upcoming AVP season. Well done, Troy!

 

 

 

 

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Break ups suck. Tried to have fun with it by creating this video. Fired up that #TeamTNT is back together for these events. @timbomgren let’s do this thing 💪🏼

A post shared by Troy Field (@troyfield_beach) on Jun 30, 2020 at 8:13am PDT

See you next week!