For the second year in a row, Portorož will in August be the venue of the beach volleyball tournament Vzajemna Portorož Open 2017. Before the start, the Slovenian sailors Tina Mrak and Veronika Macarol also tried the Portorož sand. The pair returned from the July World Championship with a bronze medal.
Training before the regatta
The girls already left for Aarhus, Denmark, at the weekend, where sailors compete this week in a dress rehearsal for the Olympic-class World Championship. There, next August, the first Olympic berths for the Tokyo 2020 Games will be awarded. Before leaving, Tina Mrak and Veronika Macarol held a fun training session in Portorož with the national beach volleyball champions Tjaša Kotnik and Tjaša Jančar, and the legend Jasmin Čuturić.
The tournament
The international tournament, organized by Volley Club Portorož in cooperation with the Slovenian Volleyball Federation, will take place under the auspices of MEVZA. On three courts on the central Portorož beach, 16 women’s pairs and 16 men’s pairs will compete in the main draw. The competition begins on Thursday, 17 August, and the finals are on Saturday, 19 August.
The best Slovenian pairs, Tjaša Jančar and Tjaša Kotnik, and Nejc Zemljak and Jan Pokeršnik, have already announced that they will play.