The 2012 SWATCH FIVB World Tour revealed – Beach Volleyball News
The international organising authority of beach volleyball, the FIVB, has announced the schedule of the forthcoming 2012 SWATCH FIVB World Tour. According to the plan, the world tour will feature 14 events and 15 countries of the world will host the tournaments.
The 2012 SWATCH FIVB World Tour will start in the month of April and it will complete its run over a seven-month period in October.
In 2011, the SWATCH FIVB World Tour featured six Grand Slam tournaments but 2012 tour will include record breaking 12 Grand Slams. Likewise, the number of single gender events will also be increased. A total of eight Open events will be featured, six of
which will be one-gender competitions.
The 2012 regular season of beach volleyball will take centre stage with a double gender Open tournament in either Brasilia or Rio de Janeiro. The event dates are confirmed from April 16 to 22 but the venue is yet to be finalised. In the next run, China and
Poland will host solo competitions for men and women, which will be followed by the Grand Slam tournaments in Beijing, Moscow, Rome, Stavanger, Gstaad, Klagenfurt, Stare Jablonki and in Shanghai. Finally, the tour will be rounded off with single-gender events
in October.
Nonetheless, the upcoming tour will be different from the previous years in one or more ways. Shanghai has been given the status of Grand Slam host for the first time and Berlin may return to the calendar for the first time since 2008. The World Tour could
also see a homecoming to Rio de Janeiro after seven years. However, the matter it is still yet to finalised, with Brazilian capital Brasilia yet to reach the final verdict. The Phuket Open has been taken off the calendar and instead a new Open event will take
place in Bang Saen, Thailand.
A total of $7.3 million will offered as the prize money during the entire season. Each Grand Slam tournament will offer $600,000 shared prize money to the winners.
One of the highlights of the 2012 tour will undoubtedly be the upcoming Summer Olympics in London, which is scheduled to begin on July 27-Aug. A total of sixteen places per gender will get the Olympic tickets following the Rome Grand Slam on June 12-17.
Hence, the 2012 SWATCH FIVB World Tour has extreme importance and aspiring duos will be required to put in a lot of hard work on centre court.
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