Beach Volleyball: Preview of 14th Klagenfurt Event in Austria
Federation International de Volleyball (FIVB) World tour has always been active at organising volleyball championships around beautiful beaches of the world. This time around, they make a stop at the beautiful city of Klagenfurt, Austria. The Women’s A-1 Grand Slam 10 Championship started off on the 26th of July, 2010. This is the 14th annual Beach Volleyball tournament on the FIVB World Tour this season.
The event is taking place at the capital city of the federal state Carinthia, Austria, which holds the great honour of hosting FIVB world championships throughout the year. In fact this Austrian event started in 1997, when it was only a men’s game and the women became a part of this tournament in 2001. In recent years, more cities have collaborated with Klagenfurt to host the FIVB tour events. Rio de Janeiro and Japanese city Osaka are the two partners which joined hands with Klagenfurt this season.
The A-1 Grand Slam Beach Volleyball tournament is held in the last week of July every year. The women and men tournaments both have the same prize money of 300,000 US dollar. The major sponsor of the tournament is Volksbank which is one of top 5 finance groups in Austria.
The Women’s Country Quota playoff matches took place on the first day of the A-1 Grand Slam tournament in which the Brazilian and German teams marked their presence. As a result of playoffs on Monday, Vivian Cunha and Taiana Lima of Brazil moved on to the next stage from three Country Quota matches in their fourth attempt this season.
This was a hard earning due to the fact that in the earlier two attempts, they couldn’t rise above the strong Norway and Switzerland teams. In addition to this, two other German pairs, Jana Kohler/Julia Sude and Chantal Laboureur joined them in the winning circle this season. Kohler and Sude put alot of effort in the CQs matches as they pulled out the victory string to four-straights with six advancements.
The first day’s qualification matches determined the last eight spots for the next day’s opening rounds of pool play.
The Brazilian pair, Juliana Felisberta Silva and Larissa Franca, are the defending champions of this tournament. They defeated Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs of America in the 2009 championship which was held at Lake Worthersee in Klagenfurt. Juliana and Larissa had various other achievements but it was their first Klagenfurt title in six Austrian starts following second place in 2006 and 2007 with the fifth place in 2004, 2005 and 2008.
The last-year’s runner up American team which comprises of Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs, look determined to fight for victory this season. In the past, Branagh has had four Klagenfurt titles to her name and it seems that she hopes to make a strong come-back in the game.
Besides the American competitors, Juliana and Larissa have also developed a strong rivalry with their fellow Brazilian players, Maria Antonelli and Talita Antunes since the start of 2010 season. The Antonelli and Talita team is ranked second on the international tour while American FIVB world champion, Jen Kessy and April Ross, are third in position with 4,020 points. There are also some other big names in the game who are likely to give a hard-time to the defending champions of this tournament.
The A-1 Grand Slam Tournament is in progression and it will last till 31st of this month. It means that there are a lot of exciting matches to come which will decide the best teams of the season. The defending champions seem to want to hold their grip on the title for another year, but the competitors are firmly set to aim for snatching it away from them.
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