The BEACH BOYS
Meet GB’s volleyballing twins whose pursuit of Olympic glory was sparked by London Games
JAVIER BELLO holds up his phone to show the picture he and twin brother Joaquin have as their background. It is an artist’s impression of the Eiffel Tower Stadium — the beach volleyball arena at this summer’s Olympics, located at the foot of Paris’s most iconic landmark.
‘We have been manifesting our Olympic dream for a few years now,’ admits Javier. ‘As soon as I saw the venue, I said, “That looks really cool, we want to be there”.’
The venue where the Londonbased brothers find themselves with Mail Sport is a tiny beach on the banks of the Thames, where they knock a volleyball about for the purpose of our pictures.
When one onlooker asks, ‘ Are you taking promo shots for the Olympics?’, the Bellos dare only reply ‘kind of’, because they have not yet booked their place in Paris. However, with four months to go to the Games, qualification remains very much in reach.
‘If you’d asked us a year ago, we would have said we weren’t going to be close,’ admits Javier, the more talkative twin. ‘ But we’ve been getting deep into tournaments and it’s changed the picture. We’re going to be in the race up until the very end. We definitely have a big chance.’
If they do it, the 23-year- olds would be the first British beach volleyball pair to qualify for an Olympics. The only previous time Team GB competed was at London 2012, when they were able to enter as hosts.
It would, therefore, be a remarkable feat by the Bellos, not least because they are amateurs in a sport of professionals.
Off the court, Joaquin has just passed his final- year medical exams at Imperial College, while Javier is studying for a Master’s in strategic communications at King’s College, having graduated with a degree in politics, philosophy and economics.
‘Everyone around us in the rankings is professional — they are paid to play, but we have to pay to play,’ says Joaquin. ‘We are still living at home. We have tried to recreate a professional team environment with our family, so our dad is coaching us, our mum is managing logistics and our little brother is our training partner.
‘If we have got this far with what we have, if we could do this for a living, I think we could really be one of the top teams in the world.’ The Bellos estimate it costs them about £7,000 a year in court-hire fees to train two hours a day, six days a week at Barn Elms Sports Centre in south-west London.
‘It’s one of the 2012 legacy facilities so we train on the same sand from those Olympics, which is pretty cool,’ says Javier.
‘But it’s outdoors, so we have to endure the winter. Some days we even have to chip the ice away with the rake we use for levelling the court, otherwise it can be too compact and dangerous because we play barefoot.
‘But we never cancel training. Other international teams cancel as soon as the temperature drops below a certain level or there’s rain. If we did that, we wouldn’t train half the time!’
The Bellos were born in warmer climes in Madrid. They started playing indoor volleyball at the age of six, inspired by their father Luis, a former Spanish professional player and coach.
THEY moved to London when they were 10 in 2011 for their mother Barbara’s work as a licensing director for Disney. ‘ That was a really good thing for our volleyball,’ says Javier. ‘ When we moved, there was not a lot of junior volleyball, so we had to play with adults.
‘We also managed to get some tickets for the beach volleyball at London 2012. We were really inspired by what we saw and that’s when we made the transition from indoor to beach.’
The Bellos have been on an upwards trajectory ever since and, in 2022, they won England’s first beach volleyball medal at a Commonwealth Games with a bronze in Birmingham. ‘It was a really big milestone for us as a team and for beach volleyball in the UK,’ says Javier. ‘Since then, there has been huge growth and more kids playing than ever.’
The eloquent Bellos are ideal ambassadors for the sport. It is not surprising to learn they were two of the few England athletes chosen to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales at the Commonwealth Games. They were also among a handful of guests invited to a Birmingham 2022 reception at Downing Street — ideal for Javier, according to his twin.
‘ He should be a politician,’ laughs Joaquin. ‘He is our spokesperson, I’m more reserved. But playing wise, we’re very similar. We’re both very explosive and move around the sand very fast.’
Javier adds: ‘We’re one of the smallest teams in the world — I am 6ft and Joaquin is 6ft 1in — so we try to make up for that by being very strong physically. We don’t give up. That’s our identity. We are brothers and fighters. We are so united on the court. Because we know each other so well, we don’t have to communicate as much as other teams.’
With nine tournaments left to earn ranking points before the June deadline, including one in Brazil this week, the Bellos are right in contention to be one of the 24 pairs at Paris 2024.
‘Qualifying would mean the world to us,’ adds Javier. ‘We dream of stepping on to the court, in that stadium we showed you, and having our family sitting there cheering us on.’