Goodwill Games Beach Volleyball to Open

4 Men's Matches Slated Wednesday

NEW YORK, N. Y. - The men's beach volleyball competition opens here Wednesday (July 22) in the fourth annual Goodwill Games with four matches scheduled at Wollman Rink in Central Park.

Karch Kiraly (San Clemente, Calif.), who won a Gold Medal in the inaugural beach volleyball competition at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, teams with Adam Johnson (Laguna Beach, Calif.) to form one of two teams from the United States in the men's field.

Ricci Luyties (San Diego) and Sinjin Smith (Pacific Palisades, Calif.), who earned a Bronze medal at the 1994 Goodwill Games in St. Petersburg, Russia, form the second USA tandem.

The Goodwill Games men's beach volleyball competition is a sanctioned event on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour and features $100,000 in prize money. The Goodwill Games' men's Gold and Bronze medal matches will be Sunday. Jan Kvalheim and Bjorn Maaseide of Norway won the inaugural 1994 Goodwill Games Men's Gold Medal.

Eight women's beach tandems begin competing July 29 with the Gold and Bronze medal matches set for August 2. The women will also compete for $100,000 in prize money. The women compete in an FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event this week in Marseille, France before invading Wollman Rink.

Prior to the Goodwill Games, the men competed in Lignano, Italy for an FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event where the circuit's top-rated team of Guilherme Marques and Para Ferreira of Brazil downed Martin and Paul Laciga of Switzerland to win the title.

Both competitions feature round-robin pool play with one game to 15 points (win by two) with a cap at 17 points. The semi-final matches are the best two-of-three games with a cap of 12 on the first two games. If needed, a third game will feature rallying scoring with no cap (win by two points).

Men's Pool Group A

Adam Johnson/Karch Kiraly, United States
Guilherme Marques/Para Ferreira Souza, Brazil
Ricci Luyties/Sinjin Smith, United States
John Child/Mark Heese, Canada

Men's Pool Group B

Martin Laciga/Paul Laciga, Switzerland
Jan Kvalheim/Bjorn Maaseide, Norway
Julien Prosser/Leo Zahner, Australia
Martin Conde/Eduardo Martinez, Argentina