Olympic Beach Volleyball Rankings: Bukovec-Bansley make huge jump in Cinderella run
Pro Beach
Travis Mewhirter
March 26, 2024
Heather Bansley, left, and Sophie Bukovec at the 2023 Edmonton Challenge/Volleyball World photo
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 last week, 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 throughout the next two years.
Last weekend’s Recife Challenge was a weekend for the dark horses, the underdogs, the pairs making late and urgent pushes up through the Olympic rankings. None more so than Sophie Bukovec and Heather Bansley, the Canadian pair who came together in the middle of last summer, with Bukovec scrambling for a new partner and Bansley coming out of retirement to be that partner. In a stunner of a start to the 2024 season, Bukovec and Bansley began the tournament in the qualifier and ran it all the way to the finals, where they took silver, falling in the finals to Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova, who all but punched their ticket to Paris two weeks ago at the Doha Elite16. With their 760-point, Bukovec and Bansley jumped from No. 42 to 35, narrowing the gap to Canada’s No. 2, Sarah Pavan and Molly McBain.
For the men, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, with their fourth-place finish, reduced their deficit to USA No. 2 Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner to just 340 points. Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk also gained on Brunner and Crabb with a fifth and are down 880 to Brunner and Crabb.
To qualify for the Olympic Games via the Olympic rankings, teams use their best 12 finishes throughout the Olympic qualifying period, which ends June 9, 2024. The top 17 from the Olympic rankings will punch their tickets to the Paris Olympics. The remaining seven spots are allotted to five continental cup champions, the winner of the 2023 World Championships, and the French wild card.
Each country is limited to two teams who can earn a spot in the Olympic Games.
Teams can never push out good finishes. Once you hit your 12, you only replace your worst finishes. In parentheses below is the number of events each pair has played.
You earn points as a team. Therefore, if a team breaks up and the individuals select new partners, they begin with zero Olympic ranking points, although they keep their individual entry points to get into events.
