GB Beach Volleyball

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

The Bello brothers get their 2024 season underway later today when they compete in the qualifying for the Elite16 event in Dubai.

 

They'll start their campaign against  Rossi & Lupo. If they can come through that, they'll face the winner of  Canet / Rotar v  Pedro Solberg / Guto for a place in the main draw. 

 

Their 2023 season was hampered a fair bit by injury, and they didn't compete as on the main tour as they probably would have liked so it's great to see them starting their season so early and doing so in a top tier event. 

 

Whilst I am not expecting them to qualify for Paris through the ranking route, I do think they could be dark house for a surprise quota via the Continental Cup.

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

The draw for the preliminary phase of the Europe Nations Cup:

 

[Cinnamon Bun 911]

3 minutes ago, Rafa Maciel said:

The Bello brothers get their 2024 season underway later today when they compete in the qualifying for the Elite16 event in Dubai.

 

They'll start their campaign against  Rossi & Lupo. If they can come through that, they'll face the winner of  Canet / Rotar v  Pedro Solberg / Guto for a place in the main draw. 

 

Their 2023 season was hampered a fair bit by injury, and they didn't compete as on the main tour as they probably would have liked so it's great to see them starting their season so early and doing so in a top tier event. 

 

Whilst I am not expecting them to qualify for Paris through the ranking route, I do think they could be dark house for a surprise quota via the Continental Cup.

This would be a big quota for us if we could get it. The sport has the potential to blow up over here in my opinion and the coverage the Bello brothers would get would help this on massively. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

7 minutes ago, Cinnamon Bun said:

This would be a big quota for us if we could get it. The sport has the potential to blow up over here in my opinion and the coverage the Bello brothers would get would help this on massively. 

Agreed - would be great to see a beach volleyball event being held in the UK again. The event got an amazing reception at London 2012 and at the Commonwealths in '22.

 

I think the Bellos were targeting LA '28 as their best chance of getting to an Olympics, but they have decent chance of getting the European quota given they were 5th at last year's European Champs.

 

The problem has always been that the size of the draws in beach volleyball events are so small that it is difficult for them to play on the main tour week in week out so they end up playing at lower level events which don't really help their overall ranking.

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

Should also say that if  are to get the quota via the European Nations Cup, then we will need a second pairing as part of the team - that is likely to be Batrane and Bialokoz. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

Well, the early optimism unfortunately didn't last long in Doha - Bello brothers lose to  Rossi & Lupo 21-17 / 14-21 / 5-15.

 

Such a shame - that was definitely a winnable match-up. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

Bello brothers begin their LATAM swing next week with Challenger level tournament in  Recife followed by the challenger event in Saquarema at the end of March - for both tournaments they are already in the main draw so no need for qualifying. 

 

After , they'll head to  for a challenger event in Guadalaraja before trying to make the main draw of the Elite 16 event in Tepic. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

Bello brothers have been drawn against  Diaz / Alayo,  Nolvak / Tiisaar and  Victor Felipe / Renato in the pool stage of the Recife challenger event. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

Bello brothers def.  Nolvak / Tiisaar 2-0 (21-17 / 21-16)

 

Next up  Diaz / Alayo.

 

 

[Rafa Maciel 1,712]

Bello brothers come from behind to take out  Diaz / Alayo 2-1 (21-23 / 22-20 / 15-13) They were trailing throughout and it looked like the Cubans would win in straight sets before they battled back to level. In the decider, the Cubans looked to be heading for the win before the brothers fought back to sneak home with the win over the 6th seeds.