The Olympic Beach Volleyball Tournament is only 11 days away. The groups have been drawn the schedule for pool play has been published and it is now time for The Beach Volley Blog’s Olympic previews to begin. The Beach Volley Blog will preview the men’s and women’s teams and get you ready for the biggest event in Beach Volleyball. First we’ll check out some important features of the Olympic tournament that make it different from any other.
Fewer teams, more time
One thing that makes the Olympics different is the smaller number of teams. Only 24 teams of each gender qualified. Usually there are 32 main draw teams with eight of them coming out of an additional 32 qualifiers. This tournament is for an exclusive club and that gives it the elite feel the Olympics deserves. Every team that plays in Tokyo earned their way in through one of the five paths.
Another big difference is the pace. A typical tournament with more than twice the number of teams only takes 5 days to complete. At the Olympics, it takes 15 days to get from the first serve to the medal ceremony. Instead of two or sometimes three matches a day, usually teams will only have one match every two days and depending on the pool and the knockout draw, teams could have three days off in the middle of the competition.
The slow pace usually is not an issue but a welcome change for players because the Olympic buzz is incredible. The fans, the atmosphere, the other Olympic events and athletes all make this the tournament of a lifetime. It remains to be seen how the Olympic experience in Tokyo will play out. There will be no fans in the stands and players will have their movements restricted. They may not be able to go watch a basketball match or a visit the swimming or track and field competitions on their off days. I’m hoping for the sake of the athletes that worked so hard to make it that there will be plenty of things to make this the highlight of a lifetime for them while keeping them and the citizens of Tokyo safe.
Complete Olympic pools
In a typical FIVB tournament, modified pools are used. At the Olympics they play complete round robin pools. Teams only play two matches in modified pool play with the winners of the first matches playing each other to determine the group winner and the losers playing to see who gets eliminated. At the Olympics every team in the pool plays against each other once.
That means every team will have a minimum of three Olympic matches. Teams are awarded two ‘match points’ for a match win, 1 ‘match point’ for a loss and zero if they forfeit. The top two teams from each pool advance directly to the 16 team knockout tournament. The best two third place teams when all pools are compared also advance directly to the knockout. The four remaining third place teams play in a lucky losers round. The winners of those matches get the final two knockout spots. The unlucky losers and the sixth fourth place teams are eliminated at that point.
The all important tie breakers
Full pool play and comparing third place teams from different pools creates many scenarios for ties. Priority one is always beating the team on the other side of the net, but at the Olympics there is a lot of incentive to put the hammer down in a lopsided match. The difference between winning a set 21 – 18 and 21 – 12 can be huge when ties are broken at the end of the round robin.
Two way ties
It is possible for two teams to finish pool play with two wins and one loss and the other two teams finish with one win and two losses. In this case, the pool would finish with two ties. Ties like this are broken by the points ratio in all matches played in the pool. Points ratio is the ratio between every point scored and every point conceded in pool play. It is the last column in the pool tables the FIVB puts on their websites. Check out the FIVB’s Rio 2016 website to see how this worked out poorly for Jake Gibb and Cassey Patterson in pool F at the last Olympics. If a team misses several set point opportunities before finally closing out a win, it may come back to bite them in the tie breaker. When teams are tied on match points and rally point ratio, then original tournament seedings are used to break ties, with the higher seeded team getting the nod.
Three way ties
Three teams finishing with a 2 -1 record and one team with a 0 – 3 record is a very frequent result in round robin tournaments. Conversely, one team can go 3 – 0 while three teams go 1 -2 in pool play. In these cases, ties are broken by points ratio in the matches between the three tied teams. So if one team really beat up on the team that went 0 – 3 in a pool, their inflated points won’t help them in the tie breaker. Alison and Bruno didn’t win their 2016 Olympic pool, even though they were in a three way tie and had the best points ratio of the group. When only points in matches between the three tied teams were considered, Carambula and Ranghieri came out on top. That is despite the fact that the Brazilians beat the Italians in their head to head match.
Sorting out third place finishers
The six third place teams are put in order to determine who plays in the knockout and who plays in the lucky losers matches. The order is also used to determine the matchups in the luck losers draw. The first criteria in sorting this out is match points. Remember two points for a match win and one for a loss. After that, ties are broken by a new criteria, set ratio. This favors teams that won matches two sets to zero over teams that battled through a three setter. The final criteria, if teams are still tied, is the points ratio.
Compare these two match results (20-22, 20-22) and (15-21, 21-19, 10-15). Interestingly, the team that lost in three sets has a better set ratio (1:2 vs 0:2) but a worse points ratio (46:55 vs 40:42). They would benefit from the set ratio being counted ahead of the point ratio in this tie breaker.
The knockout stage
The sixteen team, single-elimination tournament is very straightforward. The interesting thing about this, is how teams are placed into the bracket. The following is from the 2016 Olympics documentation. I haven’t found anything for 2021 yet, but assume it is the same.
OLYMPIC BEACH VOLLEYBALL
TOURNAMENTS
SPECIFIC COMPETITION REGULATIONS
(As per Version 2.0 – 27 July 2016)”
You can see that pool winners are not drawn, but put into predetermined slots. The second place teams are put into a six team random draw, with a control that prevents two teams from the same pool from meeting in the first round. Finally the lucky loser winners are drawn to play the winners of Pools A and B and the best two third place finishers are drawn to play against the winners of pools C and D.
Enjoying this Beach Volley Blog post? Sign up now so you don’t miss another article.
It’s the Olympics!
The final and most obvious difference between this tournament and all others is that it is the Olympics. Like it or not, playing at the Olympics are the biggest deal in the sport. The qualification process that kept us on the edge of our seats all year was so exciting because the reward of becoming an Olympian was so great.
Olympic gold is by far the biggest prize in beach volleyball. Larissa França has more international victories than any other woman in history, but she has only one Olympic medal, and it is bronze. Kerri Walsh Jennings is second on the all time victory list but she has three Olympic golds and a bronze. There are definitely valid points on both sides of the argument about who has accomplished more in her career, but most would go with Kerri for her three victories on the sport’s biggest stage.
And who will this years gold medalists be? Check back to see the pool by pool previews so you can make your best guess. It’s all right here on The Beach Volley Blog.