FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour returns to Japan

After 20 years for men and six for women, the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour is returning to Japan in 2015 for the FIVB Yokohama Grand Slam to be held from July 21 to 26.

This year’s FIVB Yokohama Grand Slam will be the third of five double-gender FIVB Grand Slams, each with a total purse of $800,000, on the FIVB World Tour 2015. Seven FIVB men’s only events were held in Japan from 1989-1995 with six being held in Enoshima and one in Yokohama in 1991. A total of 14 women’s only events were held in Osaka from 1994-2005 and in 2008 and 2009.

Japan has hosted a total of 21 FIVB World Tour events (seven men, 14 women) with the United States leading the medal count for men and Brazil dominating the medal tally for women.

In the men’s totals after seven events, the United States has eight medals followed by Brazil with seven, Argentina, Norway with two and with one men’s medal each are Australia, France Italy and Japan.

After 14 FIVB World Tour women’s events held in Japan, Brazil leads the medal parade with 21 total medals followed by the United States with nine, Australia with five, China with two and with one women’s medal each for Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland.

The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour 2015 calendar will include five FIVB Grand Slams, a new FIVB Swatch Beach Volleyball Major Series of three events, six FIVB Opens and a special FIVB Swatch Beach Volleyball Season Final in the United States.

The showcase event will be the $1 million FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships The Netherlands 2015.

A total of 14 countries will host events this year as the 2015 FIVB World Tour also begins the Olympic qualification process with all FIVB World Tour events (except the World Tour Finals) in 2015 up until June 13, 2016 counting towards the Olympic Ranking in order to determine the 15 vacancies for each gender that will take part in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

The 2015 FIVB World Ranking system will again include FIVB Beach Volleyball Grand Slam and Open events along with additional pre-approved events at the inter-continental, continental and national levels.

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.

The 2014-2016 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Continental Cup also returns this year as it starts its portion of the qualification process for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Brazil.

Yokohama is the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo, and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu. It is a major commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area.

Yokohama's population of 3.7 million makes it Japan's largest incorporated city. Yokohama developed rapidly as Japan's prominent port city following the end of Japan's relative isolation in the mid-19th century, and is today one of its major ports along with Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Hakata, Tokyo, and Chiba.