Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 5, 2016 - The #6 seed Jake Gibb/Casey Patterson of the United States take on #19 seed, Jefferson Santos Pereira/Cherif Younousse in the first Pool F match of the Rio Olympics. Jake is playing in his third Olympic Games with new partner Casey and will be hoping to finally break through onto the podium after two fifth-place finishes with Sean Rosenthal in Beijing (2008) and London (2012). Jefferson Santos Pereira/Cherif Younousse are the first team from Qatar to compete in the Olympic Games for beach volleyball.
Head to Head
The two teams have never met in FIVB competition. Historically the #6 seed and #19 seed have split their four first-round Olympic Games matches. The two upset wins by the #19 seeds were over host nation teams that were honorarily awarded the #6 seed with South Africa's Gershon Rorich/Colin Pocock defeating Greece's Pavlos Beligratis/Thanassis Michalopoulos in Athens and Canada's Josh Binstock/Martin Reader defeating Great Britain's John Garcia-Thompson/Steve Grotowski in London.
Jake Gibb/Casey Patterson, United States, Seed #6, Pool F, Qualified 6th with 5,680 Points in the 2015-16 Olympic qualification period
• Jake: February 6, 1976 (40y6m0d), 201 cm (6'7"), 93 kg (206 lbs.), Hometown Bountiful, 113th FIVB World Tour event (ranks 46th), six gold medals, $705,037 career winnings (ranks 14th)
• Casey: April 20, 1980 (36y3m17d), 201 cm (6'7"), 88 kg (195 lbs.), Hometown Manhattan Beach, 52nd FIVB World Tour event, two gold medals, $302,562 career winnings (ranks 67th)
• Jake and Casey have been playing together since 2013. They are playing in their 43rd FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament together, two gold medals, $582,025 career winnings (ranks 29th).
• Jake has played in 27 FIVB World Tour final fours with six gold, eight silver, seven bronze medals and six 4th place finishes.
• Casey has played in nine FIVB World Tour final fours with two gold, two silver, two bronze medals and three 4th place finishes.
• Jake and Casey have played in four Final Fours in 2015-2016 (Gold St. Petersburg Grand Slam 2015, Silver Olsztyn Grand Slam 2015, 4th Moscow Grand Slam 2016, 4th Olsztyn Grand Slam 2016).
• Jake finished 5th in the Olympic Games in 2008 (Beijing) and 5th in 2012 (London), both with Sean Rosenthal .
• Jake and Casey finished 17th in the FIVB World Championships in 2013 (Stare Jablonki) and 5th in 2015 (The Hague).
• Jake finished 13th in the FIVB World Championships with Stein Metzger in 2005 (Berlin), 5th in 2007 (Gstaad), 9th in 2009 (Stavanger), and 17th in 2011 (Rome), all three with Sean Rosenthal.
• Jake and Casey are currently ranked 8th in FIVB World Tour points in 2016 with 4,300 points and 9th in winnings with $124,125.
• Jake and Casey have a career 149-71 (67.7%) match record in FIVB World Tour Events and a 75-34 (68.8%) record in the 2015-16 Olympic qualification period.
• Jake and Casey won one silver medal on the NORCECA Continental Tour in 2014 (Turtle Beach, Trinidad and Tobago).
• Jake was named the FIVB World Tour Top Rookie in 2005, Most Inspirational in 2013 and 2014, and was Team of the Year and Tour Points Champions with Sean Rosenthal in 2012.
• Jake is the oldest player competing in the Rio Olympics at 40 years and 6 months of age. He is the second oldest man to participate in Olympic Beach Volleyball competition behind Angola's Emanual Fernandes who was 41 years and 0 months at the start of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
• Jake is a two-time cancer survivor.
Jefferson Santos Pereira/Cherif Younousse, Qatar, Seed #19, Pool F, Qualified through Asian Confederation (AVC) Continental Cup
• Jefferson: June 8, 1989 (27y1m29d), 182 cm (6'0"), 87 kg (193 lbs.), Hometown Doha, 22nd FIVB World Tour event, one gold medal, $28,287 career winnings
• Cherif: May 22, 1995 (21y2m15d), 195 cm (6'5"), 76 kg (169 lbs.), Hometown Doha, 14th FIVB World Tour event, one gold medal, $19,700 career winnings
• Jefferson and Cherif have been playing together since 2015. They are playing in their 13th FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour tournament together, one gold medal, $39,400 career winnings. They won Qatar's only FIVB World Tour gold medal.
• Jefferson has played in one FIVB World Tour final four with one gold medal.
• Cherif has played in one FIVB World Tour final four with one gold medal.
• Jefferson and Cherif have played in one Final Four in 2015-2016 (Gold Kish Island 2016).
• Jefferson and Cherif finished 5th in the FIVB World Championships in 2015 (The Hague).
• Jefferson and Cherif are currently ranked 42nd in FIVB World Tour points in 2016 with 1,380 points and 42nd in winnings with $19,800.
• Jefferson and Cherif have a career 20-28 (41.7%) match record in FIVB World Tour Events, all in the 2015-16 Olympic qualification period.
• Jefferson and Tiago Santos won the bronze medal at the AVC Continental Championships in 2014 (China) and one gold medal on the AVC Continental Tour in 2014 (Khanom, Thailand).
• Cherif is the youngest men's player competing in the Rio Olympics at 21 years, 2 months of age. He is the second youngest man to participate in Olympic Beach Volleyball competition, Czech Republic's Martin Lebl was 20 years and 5 months at the start of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
• Jefferson and Cherif teamed with Julio Junior/Ahmed Tijan to lead Qatar to its first-ever appearance in the Olympic Beach Volleyball competition by winning the Asian Continental Cup in Cairns, Australia. The Qatar pairs were undefeated in six matches in Cairns with team wins over Iran, Kazakhstan and China. All six of the Qatar matches were three-setters with four of the wins being comeback victories after losing the first set.