Beach volleyball committed to role in multi-sport European Championships

Beach volleyball is ready to star at future multi-sport European Championships after a hugely successful event in Munich.

Fans flocked to the German city to watch beach volleyball and eight other sports, including athletics and cycling, that held their continental championships as part of the multi-sport format.

It was the first time that the sport had featured in the multi-sport format which debuted in Glasgow four years ago, and after making an immediate impact on its debut beach volleyball is committed to appearing in future multi-sport events.

European Volleyball managing director Thorsten Endres said: “Our board already took the decision back in May that we are committed to join for 2026 and 2030.

“We are aware that there are ongoing discussions for the next editions but we are happy to contribute to these discussions, as I believe we have quite a good understanding and can understand all different parties.

“We are committed to making it happen in 2026 and beyond because we believe in this concept. I think the organisation in Munich has proved that this concept of bringing different sports together works.

“As always in life and especially for us as a team sport, we know that if you combine different characters and different key skills it’s much stronger, and that’s what we experienced here. I think it was a healthy mixture between smaller federations and experienced federations.”

Beach volleyball was at the heart of the games, held in the centre of the city at Konigsplatz and attracting fans in their droves to watch Sweden and Latvia claim gold medals.

And Endres believes that the sport was given the platform to put on the perfect show and boost its profile.

He added: “It was the hotspot, the party square in Munich, not only for beach volleyball but for all our colleagues.

“I think the concept of beach volleyball with music, DJs, many interactions between the rallies, allow us to have this kind of atmosphere. You could see starting on Monday and finishing on Sunday how the spectators also learned and got used to celebrating, and being really engaged with the sports presentation team on site.

“One of the key moments was on Saturday night when there was heavy thunderstorm and lightning, we had to evacuate the whole square - but people came back after two hours.

“They were enjoying the matches, the final matches during heavy rain. That showed that people have committed, they’ve enjoyed what they’ve seen and hopefully the athletes did as well.

“The whole package was really attractive and we were very happy.”

The multi-sport European Championships Munich 2022, featuring Athletics, Beach Volleyball, Canoe Sprint, Cycling, Gymnastics, Table Tennis, Triathlon, Rowing, Sport Climbing, took place between 11th-21st August on the 50th anniversary of the Olympics Games in the German city. Daily live coverage was across BBC One, Two, Red Button, BBC iPlayer, BBC Sport website