Highlights of the 2017/2018 FIVB Beach Volleyball Calendar include 5-star Major events in Fort Lauderdale (USA), Gstaad (Switzerland) and Vienna (Austria), culminating in the fourth edition of the Swatch Beach Volleyball FIVB World Tour Finals from August 14 to 19 – venue to be announced at the end of November. A fourth Major event, still to be confirmed, is currently scheduled from May 29 to June 3 in Croatia.
The calendar also features eleven 4-star events, five 3-star events, five 2-star events and seventeen 1-star events. In addition, Nanjing, China will host the FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championships from June 26- July 1.
The new 5-star Vienna Major (July 31-August 5) will welcome teams back to the Austrian capital exactly one year after the hugely successful 2017 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships. Players can also look forward to a 4-star event in Tokyo from July 25-29 – the World Tour’s first visit to the Japanese capital – just two years before the Olympic Games take place in the city in 2020.
Four countries will host a World Tour event for the first time, with stops scheduled in Muscat, Oman (March 14-17), Manila, Philippines (May 3-6), Tuan Chau Island, Vietnam (May 9-12) and Singapore (June 21-24). And eight venues will join Vienna and Tokyo in welcoming an event for the first time, including Satun, Thailand (April 8-11), Mersin (May 2-6), Aydin (May 17-20) and Samsun (July 26-29) in Turkey, Huntington Beach, United States (May 2-6), Ostrava, Czech Republic (June 20-24), Jinjiang in China (May 31-June 3) and Kochi in India (August 2-5).
The first four venues on the 2018 calendar - The Hague (Netherlands), Shepparton (Australia), Kish Island (Iran) and Fort Lauderdale (USA) - also hosted events in 2017. They will be joined by other events returning in 2018 in the Netherlands (Aalsmeer – an indoor event), China (Xiamen, Nanjing and Nantong), Malaysia (Langkawi), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Monaco, Morocco (Agadir), Portugal (Espinho), Korea (Daegu and Ulsan) and Russia (Moscow).
Other venues returning to the World Tour in 2018 include Doha in Qatar (March 6-10), Lucerne in Switzerland (May 9-13) and Bangkok in Thailand (May 10-13).
Two more tournaments are scheduled to take place in Yangzhou, China (May 23-27) and Poland (June 27-July 1). More information on these events will be made available in due course. In all, China and Turkey will host the highest number of events in 2018.
