A Beach Pro Tour Challenge event and an Elite 16 tournament - the highest level on the circuit - are billed as the main events of the Great Ocean Road Beach Volleyfest, which runs from 23 November to 4 December, with the first leg of the Australian Beach Volleyball Tour also on the program.

Beach volleyball fans are in for a treat as Australians Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar will be the team to beat in the women’s Elite 16 event.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games silver medallists hold the top seed in a women’s main draw featuring several exciting new partnerships, as the Paris 2024 Olympic qualification period starts next January and athletes keep seeking out teammates who might lead them to the next Olympic Games.

Such is the case for the American duo of Sara Hughes and Kelly Chang, who will reunite in Torquay with Paris 2024 in sight after breaking up their original partnership in 2018.

Rio 2016 Olympian Nicole Laird with young gun Alisha Stevens are the second Australian seeded team in the women’s main draw, with Georgia Johnson & Jasmine Fleming going through the qualifying round.

Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth gold medallists Aussies Chris McHugh and Paul Burnett will take on some of the hottest teams in men’s international beach volleyball, including Swedish rising stars David Åhman & Jonatan Hellvig and Tokyo Olympic bronze medallists Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar.

Tickets for the Great Ocean Road Beach Volleyfest start from $5 and are available here.

Chris and Paul are seeded at no.3 and will be playing in Torquay off the back of their 2022 Asian Senior Men's Beach Volleyball Championships participation, their first international event after their successful Commonwealth Games campaign.

The Torquay Elite 16 event starts on Tuesday 29 November with athletes competing not only for the title, but also to secure a spot in the top-eight of the FIVB world rankings and a pass for the Finals of the inaugural Beach Pro Tour, held in Doha from 26-29 January 2023.

Two more Aussies teams are seeded in the men’s main draw, with the pairs of Thomas Hodges & Zachery Schubert and Izac Carracher & Mark Nicolaidis seeded at no. 10 and no. 11 respectively, while the young Beach Volleyroos teams of James Takken & Solomon Bushby and Joshua Howat & Jack Pearse will have to go through the qualification tournament to claim a spot in the main draw.

The teams of Åhman/Hellvig and Hughes/Chang are also the top seeds in the Challenge event, the second-tier Beach Pro Tour tournament which will kick-off the Great Ocean Road Beach Volleyfest on 23 November.

Twenty Australian teams including Chris/Paul will compete in the Challenge event across the men’s and women’s qualifying rounds and main draws, with teams competing for prize money and ranking points ahead of the Elite 16 event.