The bronze medal at the 2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship in Tlaxcala is probably the best achievement in Polish pair Michal Bryl & Bartosz Losiak’s journey so far. Also in Tlaxcala, in 2022, they wrote their names in modern beach volleyball history as the first ever Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour men’s gold medallists as they topped the podium at the inaugural Challenge event in the Mexican city. Just a week later, Bryl & Losiak also reached the semifinals of the first ever Elite16 tournament, which was held in another Mexican city, Rosarito.

The fourth season of the Beach Pro Tour is set to get underway next month and, once again, the first Challenge and the first Elite16 stops of the season will be held in Mexico. Hoping that the North American country will be “lucky” for them again, the Polish athletes are looking forward to getting back in action, as they are registered for both the Yucatan Challenge from March 20 to 23 and the Quintana Roo Elite16 from March 26 to 30.

“When I recall tournaments in Mexico, we always finished well, and when we didn't, we were still close to the medal zone,” 32-year-old defender Bartosz Losiak said in an interview the pair gave for pzps.pl. “This historic medal from the World Championship in Mexico is definitely remembered, and we hope that Mexico will be lucky for us this year. It would be nice to start these first two tournaments with a bang and collect some points, much needed in the qualification process for the European Championship. We will prepare for it as best as we can to collect as many points as possible in these first tournaments.”

Bryl & Losiak are training for the new season under the guidance of a new coach, 50-year-old Argentinean instructor Mariano Baracetti, a 2001 world champion and a three-time Olympian as a player.

“We want to prepare as best as we can for the season that we are starting really soon,” said 30-year-old blocker Michal Bryl. “Preparations are in full swing. We have a new coach, Mariano Baracetti, with whom we are getting along, but even at this point, I can say that we are in sync and we know what to do, what to change. We have new ideas for the game and we are sticking to them. We are preparing hard and soon we are leaving for the first camp in Tenerife, where we will be playing outdoors.”

Three-time Olympian Losiak and two-time Olympian Bryl have been playing together since after the Tokyo 2020 Games, where they appeared with their previous partners. The first Beach Pro Tour season was really successful for them as they collected four gold medals, garnished with a silver at the Finals. In the summer and the fall of 2022, they spent six consecutive weeks as the number two team in the FIVB World Ranking. Later on, they added two more Beach Pro Tour medals to their collection, in addition to the 2023 World Championship bronze. In 2024, they qualified for the Paris Olympics, their first Games together, but have not yet returned to the Tour since their Vienna Elite16 silver just before the Olympics, and have gradually dropped down to number 16 in the world.

“I think it was the longest off-season break ever,” said Losiak. “After the European Championship (in August 2024) we stopped competing, but we had a three-week camp in November, because we were aiming for the Beach Pro Tour Finals. We were hoping that we might be able to play there, but unfortunately we didn't make it, so we only trained a little, and then we had a break until January 20^th, enough time to recover and to clear our heads, time that was needed to sort everything out and take a break from volleyball, because the last four years were quite intense and definitely tiring. That's why I used this break well and I'm glad that I could give beach volleyball a miss for a while.”

As they need to make enough Beach Pro Tour appearances to earn qualification for EuroBeachVolley 2025, set to take place in Dusseldorf, Germany from July 30 to August 3, Bryl & Losiak are likely to appear at more Challenge events after Yucatan, and probably all Elite16 events in the calendar. However, their main priority this year will, of course, be the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship to be held in Adelaide, Australia from November 14 to 23, which lays out a long season ahead.

“We have divided this season into two stages,” Bryl explained. “The first is the qualification for the European Championship and this stage will end with the European Championship. After that, we will automatically move on to the second stage, which is qualifying for the World Championship and our actual performance there. It will be a long period, because we will finish in November, but everyone knows what the calendar looks like and everyone will have the same conditions. Just like every year, we want to win as many medals as possible on the Beach Pro Tour. We want to do well at the European Championship and certainly the main goal - the priority - is the World Championship in Australia.”

“We are ambitious competitors and we want to win as much as possible and that is our goal,” Losiak confirmed. “I would like us to at least repeat the success from two years ago in Mexico, although it certainly won't be easy. We will strive to aim for the best form we can build for Australia, and where this will take us, the World Championship itself will show.”

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