Overview

Rio Olympians and 2019 World Championship bronze medallists Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar will contest the women’s draw, while Chris McHugh and Damien Schumann are the first male Australian Beach Volleyballers to contest an Olympic Games since Beijing 2008.

Ones to Watch

Ranked 5 in the world, with gold in the Mexico 4-star tournament in May 2021 and claiming Australia’s first World Championships medal in more than a decade in 2019, Clancy and Artacho del Solar have shown they are in the top tier of world beach volleyball teams.

The Format

Games are best of three sets, with the first two sets played to 21 and a decider if needed played to 15 points. Teams must have a two-point advantage to win a set.

24 teams per gender are split into six pools of four for round robin matches. The top two teams in each pool and the two best 3rd place finishers progress to the knockout quarter-finals.

McHugh and Schumann will face off against world number 1 pair Anders Mol and Christian Sorum of Norway in their pool. Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan topped the Aussie duo in the Commonwealth Games final in 2018 and currently sit at world number 1, while the always strong Brazil will feature two teams ranked in the top-4.

The Beach Volleyball competition pool play runs from 24 – 30 July with knockout finals from 1 – 7 August at Shiokaze Park.

What's the story?

Born in Kingaroy, more than 100 kilometres from the nearest beach, Clancy became Australia’s first Indigenous Olympian in Beach Volleyball at Rio 2016, finishing 5th with then-partner Lou Bawden. Artacho del Solar was born in Peru, moving to Sydney’s northern beaches with her family aged 11.

Schumann and McHugh cap Australia’s return to the Olympic arena, coached by Andrew Schacht, who was Australia’s last male Olympic beach volleyballer in 2008. The pair secured Australia’s return to the Olympics by winning the Asian Volleyball Continental Cup in Thailand in late June, returning to hotel quarantine in Australia for two weeks before heading to Tokyo.

Did you know

Volleyball is one of the most participated sports in the world, with hundreds of millions participating around the world each year.

Beach Volleyball Snapshot