NZ's Beach Blacks team, Brad Fuller, left, and Ben O'Dea, qualified for the World Beach Volleyball Championships in Adelaide next month. Photo / Supplied
First stop, worlds. Next, the Olympics.
This is the goal Tauranga beach volleyballers Brad Fuller and Ben O’Dea are chasing as they prepare to compete at the world championships in Australia next month.
It will mark a major milestone for the sport in New Zealand.
The duo recently became the first Beach Blacks team to qualify for the World Beach Volleyball Championships since 2015.
The Beach Ferns have also qualified, with Waikato’s Shaunna Polley and Olivia MacDonald the first women’s combination to do so since 2001.
Fuller, 30, and O’Dea, 33, have been playing beach volleyball together almost two years, having each achieved success on the sand with prior partners.
O’Dea won bronze alongside his brother, Sam O’Dea, at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Fuller and O’Dea’s partnership “came together organically”, Fuller said.
“We were always on the other side of the net from each other, and having really good games.
“I think we saw that if we got together as a team, our ceiling was probably a lot higher than anybody else pairing up in New Zealand.”
Fuller and O’Dea set the World Beach Volleyball Championships as their goal over a year ago.
They won the World Beach Pro Tour Futures event in Mount Maunganui in March.
In April, they placed second at the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Beach Tour Samila Open and fifth at the World Beach Pro Tour Futures event at Thailand.
When the duo spoke to NZME, they were in the Philippines for a World Beach Pro Tour Challenge event.
“We’ve been playing a lot of international tours because that’s our only exposure to those high-level teams,” Fuller said.
Recently, they competed in a World Beach Pro Tour event in Veracruz, Mexico, and an elite event at Newport Beach in California, US.
They also trained at California’s Hermosa Beach, “one of the beach volleyball hubs in the world”, said Fuller.
Now that they know the other teams in their pool – Cuba, Portugal and Benin – they can begin strategising.
O’Dea said they were “quite a physical team” despite being smaller than most in the sport, with his height being 195cm and Fuller at 190cm.
They “chop and change” back-court and front-court positions, but O’Dea predominantly blocks.
High-performance beach volleyball coach for New Zealand, Jason Lochead, said one of the great things about the world championships is knowing their opponents ahead of time.
“It gives us the chance to prepare properly for each match, something we don’t usually get.”
Lochead joined the high-performance programme in 2021 and has had a “huge impact” on volleyball in New Zealand, Fuller said.
O’Dea said “feeding athletes through good volleyball coaches and high-school programmes” helped the Bay of Plenty produce talented beach volleyballers.
“There’s not a whole lot of opportunity for people once they leave school to follow a professional indoor route unless they go overseas.
“So, if you want to stay in New Zealand, beach volleyball is your only option really.”
O’Dea said Mount Maunganui had become a hub for beach volleyball.
It hosted more tournaments as well as the high-performance programme.
“We have the best beach in New Zealand for playing beach volleyball.”
O’Dea said he used to watch the pro tour on Mount Maunganui beach when he was in high school.
“It’s easy to follow something when you see someone ahead of you [doing it]. It’s a natural progression.”
Fuller said funding was a “constant” battle.
“We’re probably in a better position this year. We’ve received funding from Sport New Zealand, which has been awesome.”
He said it would be great to keep that going forward to “continue to build the sport in New Zealand”.
Balancing their day jobs, families, and beach volleyball had also been difficult.
O’Dea runs a solar panel cleaning business with his brothers, while Fuller works for the Tauranga City Council as a team leader of the library and community hub.
Fuller said it was tough with a young son, 2-year-old Riley, and he tried to keep his schedule flexible enough to make the most of family life.
After worlds, the Beach Blacks will strive for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The top 25 teams in the world automatically qualify based on points, and four continental spots are given to each continent, with Australasia combined with Asia.
The Beach Blacks are currently ranked outside of the top 25.
While they aimed to improve their seeding, they would also pursue qualification through the continental route.
To do this, they compete in specific tournaments and must rank in the top four for the continent in terms of points.
The World Beach Volleyball Championships will be held in Adelaide from November 14 to 23.
Bijou Johnson is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty. A passionate writer and reader, she grew up in Tauranga and developed a love for journalism while exploring various disciplines at university. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Studies from Massey University.