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May 19, 2024
May 7, 2024
The race for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games officially began in February 2023 in Doha, Qatar, with the Volleyball World Elite16. The 2024 season began the first week of March back in Doha, and the final event of the Olympic qualification cycle will be the Ostrava Elite16, which ends on June 9. We’ll be providing these updates for the Beach Volleyball Olympic rankings after international points-earning tournaments:
With three events remaining in the Olympic qualification period — an Elite16 in Espinho, Portugal, a Challenge in Stare Jablonki, Poland, and an Elite16 in Ostrava, Czech Republic — the women’s race has been essentially boiled down the reality television show of Keeping up With the Verge-Depre Sisters.
Somehow, with each episode, they continue to keep pace with each other.
Zoe Verge-Depre and Esmee Bobner led older sister Anouk Verge-Depre and Joana Mader, bronze medalists at the Tokyo Olympic Games, entering the season. Anouk and Mader took the lead at the season-opening tournament in Doha, and the lead has flipped every single event since, each team one-upping the other in an impressive display of Swiss strength. When Zoe and Bobner won their first gold medal at a Challenge in Guadalajara, Anouk and Mader nearly matched it with a silver in Xiamen but took the lead nonetheless. Zoe and Bobner responded again his past weekend in Brasilia, Brazil, claiming a bronze medal, their first podium at an Elite16.
Back in the lead they went.
Zoe and Bobner now hold their biggest lead over Anouk and Mader, a 460-point edge that, on paper, would seem safe, but this is the Swiss race we’re speaking of — no lead has been safe for a single week in 2024.
A similar sentiment could be said of the men’s Dutch race. A gold medal by Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot to open the season in Doha, and three straight fifths from No. 3 Steven van de Velde and Matthew Immers, appeared to settle it: Boermans and de Groot had cemented one spot, while Alex Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen had long locked up the other. Immers and van de Velde, though impressive, would just miss.
Then came Brasilia. Immers and van de Velde had never medaled in an Elite16. In fact, they’d made just a single podium in a Challenge, posting more qualifier knock-outs than they had medals in the first 14 months of the qualification period. But when they needed it most, they delivered, winning a silver medal in Brasilia while critically knocking out Brouwer and Meeuwsen in the quarterfinals. The 1,100 points they picked up in Brasilia jumped them to No. 11 in the rankings, just 220 points behind Brouwer and Meeuwsen. Technically, they lead Boermans and de Groot, though Boermans and de Groot are still adding two more finishes without dropping any.
Who’s the favorite? Hard to say, though Boermans and de Groot, who finished ninth in Brasilia, are certainly in the driver’s seat, and Immers and van de Velde have the momentum heading into the final stretch, despite still behind down to Meeuwsen and Brouwer.
Also now in the driver’s seat, though for a different race, is Chase Budinger and Miles Evans. A fifth in Brasilia is, like van de Velde and Immers, their best finish at an Elite16. Like van de Velde and Immers, it couldn’t have come at a better time, drawing them within 100 points of Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner. After next weekend’s NORCECA Continental Finals, Budinger and Evans will, for the first time, be holding the lead for the second USA spot.
(updated May 6 after Brasilia Elite16)
(updated May 6 after the Brasilia Elite16)
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