Beach Volleyball Athlete Profile - Rio 2016

I somehow found this article today, talking about the increasing height of beach volleyball players. What struck me is that it was written 9 years ago, but sounds like it could have been written for the upcoming Olympics. Which got me thinking - we always hear about how tall athletes are, and tall players are always targeted for development opportunities, but are athletes really getting taller? The following data comes from the NBCOlympics.com site. I don't know about its accuracy, other than to say that if they aren't accurate, then it is more likely they are over-estimated than under-estimated.

	Women	Men
Average (cm)	179.8	195.0
Maximum (cm)	195.6	210.8
Minimum (cm)	162.6	177.8
Median (cm)	180.3	195.6

Other interesting facts:

• Women
• 30 female athletes under 6 foot
• 11 athletes in the Top 10 teams under 6 foot
• 2 athletes in the Top 3 teams under 5 foot 10
• Men
• 23 athletes under 6 foot 5 inches
• 7 athletes in the Top 10 teams under 6 foot 5
• 2 athletes in the Top 3 teams 6 foot 1

(Photo Credit)