New era for the FIVB Beach Volleyball

The beach volleyball season will start with the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Cup Final, which is due to be held in the first part of the year in Brazil. The World Cup Final brings to a close the incredible successful first Continental Cup cycle, featuring the Continental champions and countries who qualified to teams to the Olympic Games.
Although this completes the first edition of the Continental Cup it will also kick start another exciting FIVB beach volleyball season with the World Tour set to capitalise on the tremendous momentum of the past year. The new approach by the FIVB World Tour Council will create new opportunities for players through a potentially record-breaking FIVB beach volleyball calendar in 2013. This will come partially from a reduction in approval criteria for FIVB Open events.
Starting in 2013, Grand Slams will be clearly established as the core events while the number of Open events will be expanded, giving teams more opportunities and options to participate. New countries, such as Peru, Qatar and Uganda, are expected to host FIVB Open events for the first time while USA could potentially be welcomed back for the first time since 2004 as part of a calendar likely to cover nine months of the year (March to December) and all five confederations. The success of the Continental Cup, which involved 149 countries over the two year programme, has encouraged many national federations to participate in other FIVB events setting things up for a landmark year for the World Tour in 2013.