Beach Volleyball: Elite16 - João Pessoa 2024 preview, full schedule, and how to watch live action of the competition in Brazil

The next stop for the best beach volleyball players in the game is the BPT Elite16 - João Pessoa tournament (16-20 October).

Back-to-back Elite 16 competitions in Brazil bring athletes to the eastern city of João Pessoa, with less than two months to go until the BPT Finals in Doha.

Both the men’s and women’s Olympic champions from Sweden and Brazil respectively will be participating in the Finals, as the pairs look to add to their achievements this year with an Elite16 title.

Here is everything you need to know ahead of the competition.

Elite16 - João Pessoa: Format

There are 16 men’s teams and 16 women’s teams that both follow the same format, with four of them qualifiers from the preceding 16-team qualification tournament for the pool phase.

Teams are divided into four pools of four teams, playing each other once in best-of-three sets. The group winners go straight to the quarter-finals, while the second and third teams enter the round of 12 to earn their chance to progress to the final eight.

From there, it is a straight knockout until the final and the bronze medal match to determine the podium standings.

Elite16 - João Pessoa: Key men’s players

Top seeds and home heroes George Wanderley and Andre Loyola go into João Pessoa as the top seeds and vying for their first Elite 16 title of the season.

Olympic champions David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig will be vying for glory to return to the top of the world rankings, where they are just 40 points off number one.

Also present after Paris 2024 are third seed and bronze medallists from Norway, Anders Bernt Mol and Christian Sørum, who have already won two Elite16 tournaments this year in Vienna and Hamburg.

Elite16 - João Pessoa: Key women’s players

The top four seeds in the women’s main draws are Brazilian teams, led by Olympic gold medallists Ana Patricia Ramos and Eduarda Santos Lisboa (better known as Duda).

With none of the other medallists from Paris present and some partnerships even ceasing after the Games, Brazil’s number one pair of Carolina Solberg Salgado and Barbara Seixas de Freitas.

Elite16 - João Pessoa: Schedule and how to watch live

The first match gets underway on the morning of 17 October at 09:00 local time (GMT-3). The men’s and women’s finals will take place back-to-back on 20 October, with the women’s trophy first up at 4pm followed by the men an hour later.

VolleyballTV is the place to follow the Elite16 tournament across the world, though territorial restrictions for certain content may apply.

The full tournament schedule is available here.