Lausanne, Switzerland, October 18, 2019 - Next up on the
2019-2020 FIVB Beach Volleyball Calendar from October 30 to November 3, Qinzhou returns to the World Tour for the third-straight season as the southeastern China city hosts the first of five international beach volleyball events in the Asian country during the 2019-2020 campaign.
The Qinzhou event marks the first women's event on the 2019-2020 FIVB World Tour calendar as the men's schedule was launched at the start of October in Iran where Thailand's Nuttanon Inkiew and Sedtawat Padsawud topped the podium in Bandar Torkaman. Inkiew and Padsawud are entered in the 2019 Qinzhou event seeking their third FIVB gold medal together.
Other Chinese double gender events on the 2019-2020 FIVB World Tour schedule are Yangzhou (April 22-26), Xiamen (April 29-May 3), Jinjiang (May 13-17) and Qidong (July 9-12). Since 1998, China has hosted 51 women's and 34 men's events on the FIVB World Tour along with September’s Tokyo Olympic Qualification Tournament in Haiyang.
Men's pairs from Russia (Maxim Sivolap/Igor Velichko) and the United States (Tri Bourne/Trevor Crabb) and women's teams from Australia (Mariafe Artacho/Taliqua Clancy) and Brazil (Rebecca Cavalcanti/Ana Patricia Silva) captured the gold medals at the first two Qinzhou events in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Ana Patricia Silva (right) and Rebecca Cavalcanti of Brazil defeated Marta Menegatti and Viktoria Orsi Toth of Italy to win gold at the Qinzhou event at the end of September 2018Sivolap (Artem Yarzutkin) and Velichko (Valeriy Samoday), the inaugural Qinzhou men's winners, are scheduled to compete in the 2019 Qinzhou stop with different partners. Mexicans Lombardo Ontiveros/Juan Virgen, who dropped the 2017 Qinzhou gold medal match to the Russians, are entered again this season.
Artacho and Clancy are entered in the third annual event along with Americans Kelly Claes and Sarah Sponcil, who captured the 2018 Qinzhou bronze medal. Summer Ross (Sarah Hughes) and Brooke Sweat (Kerri Walsh Jennings), the 2017 bronze medal winners, are also scheduled to compete 2019 Qinzhou tournament with different partners.
While Chinese women have won 10 of the previous 51 events hosted by the Asian country with 29 total medals, the men will be looking for their first gold medal on home sand and their fifth podium placement overall at China FIVB World Tour tournaments.
The top women’s Chinese entrants in Qinzhou will be Jingzhe Wang and Shuhui Wen, who have captured five FIVB World Tour gold medals on home sand in Zhongwei (September 2018 and August 2019(, Nantong (June 2019), Nanjing (June 2019) and Qidong (July 2019).
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