Netherlands to host multi-city FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam

Well known for fielding powerful teams in international competition for several years, the Netherlands returns as well to the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar in 2014. The Netherlands will host the double-gender FIVB Transavia Grand Slam, to be held from July 15 to 20, will be anchored in The Hague while for the first time multiple locations will be used for pool play rounds in a FIVB World Tour Grand Slam event.

The Hague Beach Stadium in Scheveningen will see the qualification tournaments for each gender, some pool play as well as the single elimination ‘knock out’ phase from Friday to Sunday, July 18 to 20.

Additional pool play will be held during the week in two other cities in the Netherlands - Amsterdam and Apeldoorn.

It will be just the fifth FIVB World Tour competition held in the Netherlands with the other four double-gender events being held in The Hague in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013.

In 2015, the Netherlands will host the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships at multiple cities within the country but with the main venue being The Hague. This year’s FIVB Transavia Grand Slam will act as a prelude to next year’s FIVB World Championships.

This year’s FIVB Transavia Grand Slam will be fifth Grand Slam of the 2014 season and the fifth in a string of seven FIVB Grand Slams to be held over an eight-week window. The seven consecutive FIVB Grand Slam events start in Moscow, Russia (June 11-15) and ends in Klagenfurt, Austria (July 29-August 3).

Until 2013, the Netherlands has hosted a total of eight FIVB World Tour events (four men, four women) with Brazil leading the medal count in both genders. 

In the men’s totals, Brazil has four medals, followed by the Netherlands and the US with two each, and with one men’s medal each in The Hague are Latvia, Poland, Russia and Spain.
And after four FIVB World Tour women’s events held in the Netherlands, Brazil leads the medal parade with eight total medals followed by the USA with two and with one women’s medal each in The Hague are China and Germany.

The men’s champions at the 2013 FIVB The Hague Grand Slam was Brazil’s new team of Pedro Salgado/Bruno Oscar Schmidt. Winning last year’s women’s gold medal in The Hague was another new Brazilian duo of Talita Antunes/Taiana Lima.

The Hague is the seat of government in the Netherlands and the capital city of the province of South Holland. With a population just over 500,000 and more than one million inhabitants including the suburbs, it is the third largest city of the Netherlands. The Hague is located in the west of the Netherlands and is the seat of the Dutch government and parliament, the Supreme Court and the Council of State, but the city is not the capital of the Netherlands which constitutionally is Amsterdam. Most foreign embassies in the Netherlands and 150 international organizations are located in the city.

Amsterdam is the most populous within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Amsterdam has a population of 809,959 within the 1,569,300 in the greater metropolitan area. Apeldoorn is a city in the center of the Netherlands with a population of just under 160,000.