Olympic champions don’t usually play at Futures events on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, but sometimes there are things more important than the category of the tournaments. This is the case with Paris 2024 gold medallists David Ahman & Jonatan Hellvig. The world’s number one team is set to compete at the Malmo Futures in June and Davis and Jonatan really look forward to playing a Beach Pro Tour event on home soil in Sweden.

The men’s tournament set to take place in Sweden’s third largest city from June 12 to 15, 2025 will be the first ever Swedish stop of the Beach Pro Tour and Ahman & Hellvig intend to honour their native country and the Swedish sports fans not only by participating in it, but also by targeting the gold medal.

“We are incredibly excited to play a world-level competition in front of the blue-and-yellow fans,” they told volleyball.se. “It has been a few years since we last competed in Sweden and a lot has happened since then, both for us and for the interest in beach volleyball. The opposition will be tough. Everyone will want to beat us in our home sand, but our goal is undoubtedly set on getting to the top of the podium.”

It will be the first time the two 23-year-old athletes, dubbed “the Swedish jump-setters” for their innovative style of play, take part in a Futures tournament. This way, they are following the example of reigning world champions Ondrej Perusic & David Schweiner, who took part in and won the Brno Futures in their home country Czechia last year.

During the first three seasons of the Beach Pro Tour, Ahman & Hellvig have appeared at five Challenge events, 16 Elite16 events and two Beach Pro Tour Finals and have earned 10 gold, four silver and two bronze medals. In addition, they have the Paris 2024 Olympic title, a 2023 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championship silver, a Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic title, a 2021 FIVB Beach Volleyball U21 World Championship title and several continental crowns at all levels in their collection.

Ahman & Hellvig are already signed up to take part in all four Elite16 tournaments on the way to Malmo, taking place in Quintana Roo, Saquarema, Brasilia and Ostrava, as well as a number of other high-level Beach Pro Tour events leading up to November’s World Championship in Adelaide.

To a great extent, Ahman & Hellvig owe their unique playing style and their success to coaches Rasmus Jonsson and Anders Kristiansson, who are also happy that the Beach Pro Tour is coming to Sweden.

“It's great to finally be able to play an international competition on home soil,” they commented. “We believe there is a great desire to see our stars up close. The hope is that it will be a success and that in the future we can bring even bigger beach volleyball events to Sweden, now that we have two young Swedish teams at the top of the world.”

The coaches are talking about the young pairing of 19-year-old Jacob Holting Nilsson and 18-year-old Elmer Andersson, who made headlines last year, especially towards the end of the season, when they went on a 16-game winning streak that led them from the qualifiers to the gold medals at two consecutive Challenge tournaments, in Chennai and in Nuvali. This way, the Swedish teens became the youngest ever winners of a Challenge event. Earlier in 2024, Holting Nilsson & Andersson also won a Futures gold in Rakvere and the U22 European crown.

“The fact that there will be a world-level tournament in Malmo feels really fun!” said Holting Nilsson. “Elmer and I had a good end to last year and we are training hard to continue on the same track. It is always special to play so close to my home courts, so if we can be there and fight for a medal it would be really fun.”

At this point, a third Swedish duo – that of 24-year-old Anton Andersson and 25-year-old Stefan Andreasson – has also registered to compete at the Malmo Futures in June.

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