Rio 2016: Football is a religion in Brazil but beach volleyball attracts its worshippers too

Tickets for the Olympic football are still available, they have long gone for the beach volleyball

Beach Volleyball remains one of the biggest attractions at the Olympics (Getty)

Think Brazil, think beach. OK, think football, samba and carnivals, too. But Brazil and beach go hand in hand like Copa and Cabana.

That is why the Beach Volleyball tournament, which gets underway on that iconic beach on Saturday, sets the Rio Olympic pulse racing like no other event. And Beach Volleyball knows it.

The sport sees these Games as the perfect opportunity to further its cause, to gain sponsorship deals, improve TV coverage, help it grow. That was the message being hammered home in a pre-tournament players’ briefing in a marquee on the beach on Friday.

Don’t miss this smash is what the governing body, the FIVB, is telling the competitors – probably the tallest group of people ever assembled in one tent at one time and possessed with the capacity to make mere mortals feel very small indeed. Don’t miss this smash. And the ball has been nicely spiked: For the first time at a Games, the FIVB is running activities every day from 9 to 5 to help players engage with the public.

There will be exhibition matches involving former stars, clinics put on, different disciplines (water, indoor etc) explained. The game is being taken into the favelas. The message will be it is a fun, family-orientated sport. Players are being asked to talk to journalists at every opportunity in mixed zones after matches, win or lose. Sell, sell, sell. Go global.

The need for the push is less pronounced in Brazil, in truth. Football is a religion here but Beach Volleyball attracts its worshippers too. Some would say it is the more dominant sport, attracts more interest. Either way, the star players are super celebrities. Tickets for the Olympic football are still available, they have long gone for the Beach Volleyball.

Jantine van der Vlist says it is a 'dream' to play in Brazil (Getty)

In fact, they sold out faster than any other sport at these Games. And why wouldn’t they? “Copacabana is the Mecca for Beach Volleyball,” the Dutch player Jantine van der Vlist tells me after the players’ briefing.

She is beaming at the thought of it. “It has been a dream for me for many years. It is really special to be playing here. I have been to training camps here in Rio but this tops the lot.” John Boultbee, the Australian Team Leader, couldn’t agree more. “It is very exciting,” he says. “This sport in this country, it is the peak. It is what everyone here wants to see. Everyone wants to get into even just one session. It is the Rio Games experience.”

The tournament spans the Games with the men’s gold medal match on the final Friday night - so its appeal will linger, too. The venue has been erected - well, on Friday they were still erecting, with nails being hammered in and last handrails going up while they tried out the spotlights, the timer, the PA system - bang on Copacabana.

It is a neat 12,000-seater stadium, slightly smaller than that used at Horse Guards Parade in London 2012 but with a more enclosed feel to it. The duel for gold will in all likelihood be between the two dominant forces in Beach Volleyball: Brazil and the USA - and the hosts will be bitterly disappointed not to pick up gold.

They accept they won’t shine in the equestrianism but it won’t do for them to be overshadowed on the sand. Beach Volleyball made its Olympic debut in Atlanta in 1996 but Brazil feels likes its spiritual home despite its birthplace being on the beaches of Santa Monica in California in the 1920s.

But Brazil hosted the first international event in 1987 and co-hosted the first World Championships in 1989. Even in those first Olympics on American sand, Brazil’s women won gold and silver – although the US did the same in the men’s event. “If you think of Beach Volleyball you think of Southern California and Rio de Janeiro,” Casey Patterson of the USA tells me.

“This is going to be really special. It has such a rich history here. It will be an epic Games for me and it’s my first Olympics. It’s so cool,” the 36-year-old from Los Angeles adds. “It’s totally rad. I grew up watching World Championships here and now it’s so cool to be playing here.”

'Everyone has a chance,' says the USA's Casey Patterson (Getty)

To win a medal – “everyone here has a chance” - Patterson will have to beat the Brazilian duo of Alison Conte Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt, the 2015 World Champions. Alison also won silver in London while Bruno is the nephew of legendry Brazilian basketball player Oscar Schmidt. The American duo more likely to challenge them is Phil Dalhausser (gold in Beijing) and Nick Lucena.

In the women’s event, the American Kerri Walsh Jennings is 38 and going for an incredible fourth Olympic gold. She won the last three with Misty May but May now coaches leaving Walsh Jennings partnered with April Ross. They will do well to beat either of the Brazilian pairs though. Larissa França and Talita Antunes are Tour Champions and Agatha and Barbara, who sound like they should be drinking tea at a WI meet not throwing themselves around in the sand, are world champions.

Unless there is a repeat of London 2012 - when a pair of interlopers in the Germans Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann became the first European duo to take Olympic gold - it will be Brazil and the USA all the way. But what will the pressure be like? Playing Beach Volleyball in front of 12,000 people on Copacabana? “It’s by far the biggest stadium I’ve played in,” says Van der Vlist.

“It’s massive. It will be nerve-wracking.” Not so for Patterson. “I’m used to big stadiums,” he says. “It is overwhelming for some but not for me. I’m an entertainer. I love to perform. And where better than here?”