After the unfavorable weather conditions in Jūrmala on Thursday, on Friday, athletes will fight in four squares of “Ruukki” Beach Center in Mārupe without the presence of fans to resume fights in Jūrmala on Saturday and Sunday.
The schedule of the competition has changed slightly. The men will play the second round of the group tournament on Friday, as well as the first round of the playoffs, while the women will determine the winners in the first two rounds of the “play-off”.
European ex-champions Jānis Šmēdiņš and Aleksandrs Samoilovs (placed in the tournament with number 16) and Mārtiņš Pļaviņš / Edgars Točs (4th) will compete for the first place in the group in the first square.
The opponents of Šmēdiņa / Samoilova will be the Norwegian favorites Annešs Mūls and Kristians Sērums at 8.30 am, while the Austrian veterans Aleksandrs Horsts and Klemens Doplers (20th) will face Pļaviņš and Točas at 9.20 am.
Four Latvian pairs will fight for the third place in the group and the right to continue the competition in the elimination matches.
At 10.10 Arnis Reliņš / Ardis Bedrītis (31st) will meet the French duo Kinsijs E and Arno Gotjē-Ra (18th) in the first square, at 11 am Mihails Samoilovs and Aleksandrs Solovejs (30th) will meet the Polish duo Mihals Brils / Mikolajs Miščuks (19.).
Two Latvian couples are scheduled to fight in the fourth square. At 10.10, Mārcis Jirgensons and Rinalds Aišpurs (27th) will meet with the Germans Philip Bergman and Lucas Pfrecšner (22nd), but at 11 am Matis Gabdullins and Arturs Rinkevičs (24th) are scheduled to make their debut in the championship with the “King of the Court” prize winners last week in the Dutch city of Utrecht for the Swiss Mark Kratiger and Florian Beerer (25th).
Gabdulin failed to perform the Covid-19 test in time. Therefore, on Wednesday, the duo was not allowed into the first game of the group, in which the Latvians lost 0-2 (0:21, 0:21) against the European former champions Pablo Erers and Adrian Gavir (9th).
At 12 o’clock the elimination matches are scheduled to start for women.
Of the four Latvian duos, only one remains in the ranks – European champions Tīna Graudiņa and Anastasija Kravčenoka (5th), who will start the fight as the winners of the group in the second round of the playoffs, finishing their fight on the first field at 17.10.
Their opponents will be determined in a game where Italians Marta Menegati and Victoria Orsi Tota (11th) will meet with Russian athletes Maria Bocharov and Maria Voronin (19th).
This year, each team is playing only two games in a group tournament. The winners of the first game determine the winner in the group, who immediately enters the second round of the playoffs, and the losers – in the continuation of the “excess” team competition.
The European Beach Volleyball Championship in Jūrmala takes place from September 15 to 20. The tournament for 32 pairs of men and women brings together the best European men’s beach volleyball duets from 15 countries and women’s pairs from 13 countries.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the tournament is eligible for one of the strongest tournaments of the season in terms of status in the world.
The main contenders for the women’s tournament are the Swiss – Tanja Hübler / Nina Becart and Joan Heidrich / Anuka Verge-Depré, the Olympic champion Laura Ludviga from Germany, who plays with Margaret Kozuh, and Sanne Kaizere and Madeleine Mepelinka from the Netherlands Hermanova. The current champions are Graudiņa with Kravčenok.
In the men’s competition, the title is defended by the world-leading leaders from Moscow, Annešs Mūls and Kristians Sērums, who won in Moscow. World champions from Russia Vyacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovsky want to win, world vice-champions from Germany Julius Tole and Clemens Wickler, world champions – Dutch duo Alexander Brower / Robert Erzwo Adrian Gavira, as well as other powerful foreign duos.
Although the Olympic rankings related to the Covid-19 pandemic were frozen on March 16 this year, the European Championship is traditionally one of the tournaments in which teams compete for Olympic ranking points.
Volleyball players also compete for a total prize pool of 200,000 euros.
The decision to organize the competition in Latvia was made at the meeting of the Board of the European Volleyball Confederation (CEV) on July 7, 2020.
In the previous European Championship in Jūrmala in 2017, Jānis Šmēdiņš and Aleksandrs Samoilovs became vice-champions. In August 2017, Šmēdiņš with Samoilov reached the final, where he lost to the Italians Daniel Lupo and Paolo Nikola, but at that time Graudiņa and Kravčenoka, as well as Mārtiņš Pļaviņš with Harald Regza, won the surprisingly high fifth place.
This year, the competitions of the World Tour stage were to take place in Jūrmala, but this tournament was postponed to the next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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