Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy are the reigning champions of the world.

The Russians had a truly fabulous year in 2019. Soon after coming together as a team, they finished on the podium at events in Yangzhou, Las Vegas, The Hague and Xiamen. Those successes were followed by gold at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships in Hamburg and World Tour Finals in Rome.

And their spectacular run continued...

They gradually built up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games with a fifth-place finish in Doha at the beginning of 2021. They then participated in two of the three events in Cancun (finishing 9th and 17th), before playing tournaments in Sochi (9th), Ostrava (4th) and Gstaad (3rd).

In Tokyo, however, it was clear that they were ready to go all the way. They lost to Martins Plavins and Edgars Tocs of Latvia in their pool, but qualified for the elimination rounds and once again defeated Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler (repeating victories at the 2019 World Championship and World Tour Finals), before winning against future bronze medallists Cherif Samba and Ahmed Tijan in the semifinals. The world champions met their match in Norwegians Anders Mol and Christian Sorum in the final, but claimed silver, the first beach volleyball medal at the Olympics for representatives of their country.

When the two players came together, it was soon obvious Stoyanovskiy's skills and presence at the net were a good fit for Krasilnikov's work in defence, with the pair claiming podium finishes at their first three events together. And the rest is history.

Next up for the Russians: extending their successful partnership into 2022 when the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour gets started. And defending their title at the World Championships in Rome!

Did you know?

Born in 1991, Krasilnikov competed at the Under 19 World Championships in Turkey in 2009 and at the U23 World Championship in Poland in 2013 (finishing fifth on both occasions). He played with several partners in the following years, but usually featured alongside Konstantin Semenov from 2013-2016, before playing with Nikita Liamin (2017-18) and partnering with Stoyanovskiy at the beginning of 2019.

Measuring in at 2.07 m, Stoyanovskiy is five years younger than his partner and participated in Age-Category World Championships in 2013, 2014 and 2016 with Artem Yarzutkin, with whom he played until 2017. In 2018, he joined forces with Igor Velichko before starting his partnership with Krasilnikov.

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