This weekend there is an interesting tournament happening in Portorož, Slovenia that you probably aren’t aware of. There isn’t any prize money or FIVB ranking points on the line, but it may be the first step in the journey to Tokyo for one of the teams hitting the Slovenian sand. This small tournament is part of pathway number 5 in our Five Paths to Tokyo series. The teams playing in Slovenia this weekend are taking part in phase one of the European version of the Continental Cup.

🇸🇮@nejczemljak in #JanPokeršnik sta bila z 2:0 boljša od predstavnikov Severne Irske McKnightu in Workmanu. Slovenija je tako le še eno zmago oddaljena od finala. #CEVContinentalCup #RoadToTokyo #sLOVEbeach



SLO vs NIR 2-0 (21-10, 21-6) pic.twitter.com/LXHADInSHx — Slovenia Volleyball (@SloVolley) May 11, 2019

When the Olympic rankings period closes in June of 2020, 18 of the 24 beach volleyball places for the Tokyo games will have been decided. The world championship winners (path one), two teams from the Olympic qualifying tournament (path two), the top fifteen teams in the world rankings (path three) and one Japanese team (path four) will be locked in. That leaves five more places up for grabs. Those final five spots will be determined by the Continental Cup competitions organized by each volleyball confederation.

Italian men and women at the second phase of the 2015 Continental Cup.

The Continental Cups

The volleyball globe is divided up into five confederations: The Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC), Confédération Africaine de Volleyball (CAVB), Confédération Européenne de Volleyball (CEV), Confederación Sudamericana de Voleibol (CSV) and The North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation (NORCECA). Each confederation’s Continental Cup is operating on a slightly different time frame, but the finals for each one will take place on June 28, 2020. When the last point is scored on that day, the field for the Tokyo games will be set.

This path to qualification is in line with the Olympic mission and ensures that there will be men’s and women’s beach volleyball teams from every continent. Each confederation has vast differences in the number of countries and the geographic area that is covered. So, all five confederations have adopted similar programs but with some variation from competition to competition. The goal of this post is not to perfectly explain how each of the five Continental Cups work, but to give you a flavor of this final pathway to qualification. So get ready to pay attention because here we go.

Team based competition

There is a big difference in these competitions from a typical international volleyball tournament and I find it to be very cool. In the Continental Cup, two teams (four athletes) represent their countries in each phase. Advancing in the Cup is only possible through the success of two teams. Therefore, national federations don’t only need to have top talent, but also a bit of depth to qualify for the Olympics this way.

Competition format

All five Continental Cups are made up of three phases. Each confederation organizes their phases differently, but as the competition progresses from phase one to phase three, the number of teams reduces and the quality of play increases. The first phase in NORCECA is divided into geographic zones while the CEV creates their first phase pools based on FIVB ranking. The CEVs top federations don’t have to play until the second phase and the host of the CEV Continental Cup final, Holland, doesn’t play until the third phase. In South America, the winners of the first phase get an direct pass all the way to the third phase. That already happened earlier this year and Chile (men), Colombia (women), Argentina (men and women) and Brazil (men and women) have all won their first phase and are already in the final.

Venezuelan men competing in the 2019 South American Continental Cup.

Phase format

Each confederation has taken a different approach to the way their phases work. Some federations have pool play where every nation in a pool plays every other nation. In these cases, the the top one or two teams in each pool advance to the next phase. Other federations use a double elimination knockout tournament structure. Some federations use a different format in phase one from phase two. Whether it is pool play or a knockout tournament, it’s important to remember that the competition takes place between countries, not between pairs.

Match format

That may sound confusing, but put simply, in the Continental Cups, two teams from the same country will never face off against each other. Countries match up against other countries in mini round-robin competitions. The best team from country A plays a best of three sets match against the second team from country B. Then the second ranked team from country A plays against the top country B team. If one country wins both matches, they get the victory, but if it is tied one match to one match, then a golden match is played. In the golden match, any of the four players can play for their country, even if it means forming a new partnership.

The CSV plays best three out of five matches, where each pair plays both teams from the other country. When a golden match is needed, it is actually just one set to 15. So, the drama is extra high when that happens.

In a knockout tournament format or a big pool play competition, there is obviously a lot of volleyball being played. Each ‘match’ consists of as many as nine sets, and a pool may have four or five countries in it.

Colombia and Argentina battle at the net during a Continental Cup match in Mar del Plata, Argentina, February 2019.

Changing parts

Keep in mind that it is the national federations that advance from phase to phase, not necessarily the players. The four athletes that succeeded in phase one for their country won’t necessarily be selected by their federation to compete in phase two or three. It could be that teams that normally compete in one and two-star events play in phase one, but the four and five-star players turn up in phase three. The first phase in South America proved me wrong on this ideas though, with both the Grimalt cousins and Alison and Alvaro playing for their countries.

Player Rules

Players can only help their countries earn Olympic places once. That means any player that has earned a spot in the Olympics through one of the other pathways can no longer represent their country in the Continental Cup. The winners of the World Championships in Hamburg are qualified for Tokyo, so they will be out of the Continental Cup. Likewise, if a country has qualified two teams for Tokyo already, then they are removed from the final phase of their Continental Cup, even if they send two different teams that haven’t qualified yet. That is because each country is only allowed two teams in Tokyo. That could mean that a country previously eliminated from a Continental Cup in the second phase is suddenly invited back to the third phase. This is likely to happen twice for the NORCECA women with Canada and USA both expected to have two teams set for Tokyo through the Olympic rankings. That is good news for the other women in NORCECA and a clear example of how Continental Cups spread Olympic beach volleyball participation to new countries around the globe.

National Federations, not teams

The five Continental Cup winners will win one place for their countries in the Olympics. If you’ve been following along, you probably recognize a problem. The Cup is won by two teams, but they only earned one place for their country in the Olympics. This means that the National Federation will have to decide which team to send to the Olympics. Like the Japanese in pathway number four, the Continental Cup winning federations can select their team with any method they see fit and their representatives in Tokyo don’t even have to be from one of the Cup winning teams.

In fact, a close reading of the description of all five paths reveals the same phrase over and over again. “… earn one (1) quota place for their NOC/NF to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 respecting the maximum of two (2) quota places per NOC/NF.” NOC/NF means National Olympic Committee / National Federation. This means that the winners of the World Championships or a team in the top 15 of the Olympic rankings has technically only won a place for their country not for themselves. Their federation could select another team instead. Other than the Continental Cup path, where one team must be selected from the two, it is very unlikely that a federation would not send the team that earned the place. What this does mean, however, is that if one of the World Champions has an unfortunate injury, their place would not be given to the runners-up in the World Championships, but would rather be given to another beach volleyball team from their country. The same is true if a top 15 team in the Olympic Rankings suffers some sort of catastrophe. Their spot in Tokyo doesn’t go to the number 16 team but to another team from the same nation.

That’s it. Our series on how teams can qualify for the Olympics in beach volleyball is finished. Now you definitely know more than any of your beach volleyball loving friends about the five paths to the Olympics.

No teams have made it to the end of a path yet, but the Beach Volley Blog is the place to find out how everyone is coming along. Please sign up for updates, follow on twitter or bookmark this page in your web browser. The road to Tokyo is about to get very exciting.