Six teams set to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympics in a few weeks were on the court on Wednesday, the first day of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Gstaad Elite16, and four of them overcame the qualifier in the Swiss Alps, advancing to the main draw of the tournament.

• Watch the Beach Pro Tour Gstaad Elite16 matches live on VBTV

Germany’s Laura Ludwig/Louisa Lippmann and Spain’s Daniela Álvarez/Tania Moreno, on the women’s side, and Poland’s Michal Bryl/Bartosz Łosiak and Spain’s Adrián Gavira/Pablo Herrera, on the men’s side, each overcame the first day of matches and will join another ten teams in each gender in the pool play round.

A Rio 2016 Olympic champion, Ludwig and partner Lippman secured their spot in the main draw in Gstaad by coming out on top of a qualifier duel with another team qualified for Paris 2024 – they topped Australian Tokyo Olympic silver medalists Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho 2-0 (21-18, 24-22) and will now meet the Netherlands’ Raisa Schoon/Katja Stam, Italy’s Marta Menegatti/Valentina Gottardi and Brazil’s Ágatha Bednarczuk/Rebecca Cavalcanti in Pool A.

Last year’s European Championship silver medalists Álvarez and Moreno will also play in the main draw in Switzerland after they defeated Americans Kimberly Hildreth and Teegan Van Gunst 2-0 (21-11, 21-15) in the qualifier. In the main draw, the young Spanish will be in Pool D, alongside Brazil’s Eduarda ‘Duda’ Lisboa/Ana Patrícia Ramos and Carol Salgado/Bárbara Seixas and Switzerland’s Esmée Böbner/Zoé Vergé-Dépré.

Also set to compete in Paris in three weeks, Lithuanians Monika Paulikiene and Aine Raupelyte advanced to the second round of the qualifier, but were eliminated by Americans Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft in the tie-breaker (18-21, 23-21, 15-11). The fourth and last spot in the main draw in Gstaad went to the home team of Joana Mäder and Anouk Vergé-Dépré, the Tokyo Olympics bronze medalists.

Gstaad Elite16 – Match Schedule and Results

Poles and Spanish move forward

On the men’s qualifier, the two Olympic teams entered advanced, starting with Bryl and Łosiak, who moved forward with a 2-0 (25-23, 21-11) win over Swiss Julian Friedli and Yves Haussener. In the main draw, the Europeans will play Germany’s Nils Ehlers/Clemens Wickler, Brazil’s Evandro Gonçalves/Arthur Lanci and Switzerland’s Marco Krattiger/Florian Breer in Pool D.

Spanish veterans Herrera and Gavira secured their spot in the main draw with a sweep (21-18, 21-11) of Austrians Laurenc Grössig and Mathias Seiser and are now set to meet Norway’s Anders Mol/Christian Sørum, USA’s Andy Benesh/Miles Partain and Germany’s Lukas Pfretzschner/Sven Winter in their Pool C matches.

Switzerland’s Adrian Heidrich/Leo Dillier and USA’s Timothy Brewster/Logan Webber also survived the qualifier and will play the main draw in Gstaad.

The next two days in the Swiss Alps will feature the pool play matches – the men’s Round of 12 is also scheduled for Friday. The elimination rounds will unfold on Saturday and the medal rounds will conclude the tournament on Sunday.

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