With the Olympic Rings glistening above the Copacabana Center Court, here's one last long look at the men's team and individual skill stats from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games that saw Brazil, Italy and the Netherlands earn podium placements.
Lausanne, Switzerland, August 19, 2016 — Leaving a lasting legacy in Rio de Janeiro from the past three weeks with its iconic competition venue and Volleyball House, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) takes a look at some of the significant stats from the men’s Beach Volleyball competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
The beach volleyball competition, featuring 24 two-person teams in each gender was held in the 12,000-set purpose-built stadium on the sands of legendary Copacabana Beach. The men’s competition finished early this morning following a ‘midnight madness’ gold medal match while the women’s competition ended early Thursday morning.
After 54 marvelous matches, emerging from their sandy confrontations ‘at the Copa’ to earn Olympic legacies with podium placements were men’s teams from host country Brazil, Italy and the Netherlands.
With steady rain providing symbolic ‘showers of blessings’ on the host country, winning the men’s gold medal early Friday morning was Brazil’s top-seeded Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt who stopped Italy’s 10th-seeded Paolo Nicolai/Daniele Lupo in straight sets, 21-19, 21-17 in 45 minutes, rupturing the raucous roars of their vocal home country fans. Earning the bronze medal Thursday night was Netherlands’ second-seeded Alexander Brouwer/Robert Meeuwsen who won in two overtime sets over Russia’s eighth-seeded Konstantin Semenov/Viacheslav Krasilnikov, 23-21, 22-20 in 46 minutes.
This year marked only the second time in six Olympic Games that have included Beach Volleyball as a medal sport that the stadium was built on a beach. The other time was the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games in Australia where beach volleyball was held at Bondi Beach.
BRAZIL’S FIVB HISTORY
Visiting the country where the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour was born, FIVB had five events in Brazil. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the first FIVB beach volleyball event held Feb. 17-22, 1987 in Rio. The gold medal was won by USA’s Sinjin Smith/Randy Stokles.
Overall, counting five women’s events this year, Brazil has hosted 79 total FIVB events, at least one has been held every season that the FIVB has played beach volleyball. Rio de Janeiro has hosted 27 total events, including the 1999 World Championships. Fortaleza has hosted 11 events, followed by Vitória with 10 total events, followed by Brasília with eight total events and Salvador with seven. There have been 42 total men’s events and 37 total women’s events in Brazil.
In the medal count for events held in the South American country, Brazil is far ahead in both genders. For the men after their gold medal match, Brazil has 69 total medals followed by the United States with 25, Germany 6, Switzerland 6, Argentina 4, Netherlands 4, Poland 3, Canada 2, Italy 2, Latvia 2, China 1, Cuba 1, Mexico 1 and Norway 1.
In women’s medals for FIVB events held in Brazil including the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Brazil tops the chart with 63 total medals followed again by the USA with 31, Germany 6, Australia 3, Netherlands 3, Italy 2, China 1, Japan 1, Germany 1 and Poland 1.
NOW, THE RIO STATS
From the sixth consecutive Olympic Games featuring Beach Volleyball as a medal sport, here are some tantalizing tidbits of interesting info regarding the final men’s team and player skill rankings with the final four finishers understandably ranking high in each team and individual categories:
• Twenty-four (24) countries filled the berths for the Rio 2016 Olympic Beach Volleyball competition. All five FIVB confederations were represented in the competition.
Asia - 1 men’s and 3 women’s teams;
Africa - 1 men’s and 1 women’s teams;
Europe - 13 men’s and 11 women’s teams;
NORCECA - 6 men’s and 5 women’s teams;
South America - 3 men’s and 4 women’s teams
MEN’S FINAL TEAM OLYMPIC STATS
• ACES—Italy’s Nicolai/Lupo led the Olympics with 18 ace serves in eight matches followed by Mexico’s Juan Virgen/Lombardo Ontiveros with 16 in four matches, Russia’s Semenov/Krasilnikov with 16 in seven matches, Brazil’s Alison/Bruno Schmidt with 16 in seven matches and tied with 14 aces each were Brazil’s Pedro Solberg/Evandro Goncalves (four matches), Cuba’s Nivaldo Diaz/Sergio Gonzalez (five matches) and Netherlands’Brouwer/Meeuwsen (seven matches).
• ATTACKS—Russia’s Nikita Liamin/Dmitri topped the list with a 64 percent attack success rate (137 kills in 213 attempts) in five matches, second was Netherlands’ Brouwer/Meeuwsen at 63% (198 of 368 in seven matches), third was Cuba’s Diaz/Gonzalez at 61% (162 of 267 in five matches), fourth was Brazil’s Pedro Solberg/Evandro at 60% (138 of 229 in four matches) and fifth was Brazil’s Alison/Bruno Schmidt at 59% (202 of 345 in seven matches).
• BLOCKS—Tied for first with 40 blocks in seven matches each were Brazil’s Alison/Bruno Schmidt and Russia’s Semenov/Krasilnikov, third was Italy’s Nicolai/Lupo with 40 blocks in eight matches, fourth was Netherlands’ Brouwer/Meeuwsen with 39 in seven matches and fifth was Cuba’s Diaz/Gonzalez with 24 blocks in five matches.
• DIGS—Leading the tournament was Italy’s Nicolai/Lupo with 83 successful digs in eight matches followed in second was Russia’s Semenov/Krasilnikov with 82 in seven matches. Third was Brazil’s Alison/Bruno Schmidt with 80 in seven matches, fourth was Netherlands’ Brouwer/Meeuwsen with 68 successful digs in seven matches and fifth was Netherlands’ Reinder Nummerdor/Christiaan Varenhorst with 67 successful digs in five matches.
MEN’S FINAL INDIVIDUAL OLYMPIC STATS
• SCORING—First with 183 total points scored in eight matches was Italy’s Lupo (seven points per match), second was Brazil’s Alison with 163 in seven matches (10 ppm), third was Netherlands’ Meeuwsen with 133 in seven matches (8 ppm), fourth was Russia’s Semenov with 127 in seven matches (7 ppm) and fifth was Russia’s Krasilnikov with 124 total points in seven matches (7 ppm).
• ACES—The top individual in service aces was Italy’s Nicolai with 16 in eight matches while second was Russia’s Semenov with 14 in seven matches, third was Mexico’s Virgen with 13 in four matches fourth was Brazil’s Evandro with 11 in four matches and fifth was Cuba’s Diaz with 11 ace serves in five matches.
• FASTEST SERVES—Russia’s Semenov recorded the fastest serve in the Olympics at 102 km/h followed by Italy’s Nicolai at 100 km/h, Brazil’s Evandro was third at 99 km/h, fourth was Cuba’s Diaz at 96 km/h and tied for fifth with each having a top serve of 95 km/h were Spanish teammates Pablo Herrera/Adrian Gavira.
• ATTACKS—First with a 69% attack success rate was Cuba’s Diaz (72 of 104 in five matches), second with a 67% attack success rate was Netherlands’ Meeuwsen (86 of 128 in seven matches), third with a 67% attack success rate was Russia’s Nikita Liamin (82 of 122 in five matches), fourth at 67% as well was USA’s Casey Patterson (50 of 75 in three matches) and fifth at 66% was Italy’s Alex Ranghieri (37 of 56 in four matches).
• BLOCKS—Brazil’s Alison topped this skill category with 40 blocks in seven matches while tied for second with 39 blocks in seven matches each were Netherlands’ Meeuwsen and Russia’s Semenov, fourth with 38 blocks was Italy’s Nicolai (eight matches) and fifth was Cuba’s Gonzalez with 24 (five matches).
• DIGS—Recording the most successful digs in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games was Russia’s Krasilnikov with 75 in seven matches followed by Brazil’s Bruno Schmidt with 71 (seven matches), Italy’s Lupo was third with 66 (eight Matches), fourth was Netherlands’ Nummerdor with 60 (five matches) and fifth in successful digs was USA’s Nick Lucena with 58 (five matches).
ON THE HORIZON
Brazil is hosting five international events in 2016. In addition to Maceió, Rio, Vitoria and Fortaleza, the Brazil events were capped with the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Aug. 6-18).
Following the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, there are two more events scheduled on the 2016 FIVB World Tour calendar. First event scheduled is in the United States--the regular-season finale--ASICS World Series of Beach Volleyball at the $800,000 FIVB Long Beach Grand Slam (Aug. 23-28, Southern California) and the Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals (Sept. 13-18, Toronto, Canada). The Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals, with $100,000 going to each winning team, will feature the top eight point leaders in each gender from the current FIVB World Tour plus four wild card teams in each gender.
GROWING HISTORY
The ASICS World Series of Beach Volleyball at the $800,000 FIVB Long Beach Grand Slam in the United States will be the 350th men’s tournament since the FIVB began play in 1987 and the 311th FIVB women’s tournament since their competition started in 1992.
FIVB 2016
Based in Lausanne, Switzerland as the international governing body for the Olympic sports of Beach Volleyball and Volleyball, the 2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball calendar features a purse of US$8.25 million with a season that extends from last October to this October, competing at 22 venues in 12 countries. The schedule includes four FIVB Grand Slams, four Swatch FIVB Major Series events, 13 FIVB Opens and the special Swatch FIVB World Tour Finals. The showcase event will be the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil (Aug. 6-18).
The 2015 portion of the 2016 FIVB World Tour calendar started in October in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and included two more open events prior to the remainder of the schedule resuming at the FIVB Kish Island Open in Iran in February.
FIVB EVENT FORMAT
Implemented in 2013, the format of all the FIVB Beach Volleyball international tournaments – whether FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam or FIVB Beach Volleyball Open – are the same, featuring pool play followed by single elimination knockout rounds. Country Quota playoffs returned as needed in 2015 to determine the final teams for the qualification tournament.