Brazil’s Talita Antunes and Larissa Franca retained their title at the FIVB Gstaad Major Series event ©FIVB

Brazil’s Talita Antunes and Larissa Franca retained their title at the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Gstaad Major Series event after comfortably beating the United States' April Ross and Kerri Walsh-Jennings in the final.

The top seeds claimed a 21-18, 21-14 win over their second-seeded American opponents to secure their 13th international gold medal in 24 FIVB World Tour starts together.

They had earlier posted a 21-18, 21-19 semi-final win over seventh-seeded Madelein Meppelink and Marleen Van Iersel of The Netherlands.

Ross and Walsh-Jennings advanced to the final by overcoming third seeds Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst of Germany 18-21, 23-21, 15-11.

The bronze medal match saw Ludwig and Walkenhorst recover to register a 21-13, 21-16 win against Meppelink and Van Iersel.

In the men’s competition, the US’s Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena won three-straight elimination matches to advance to tomorrow’s semi-finals.

The second-seeded Americans opened play today with a 21-14, 21-16 win over Spain's Francisco Alfredo Marco and Christian García before progressing to the quarter-finals with a 21-18, 21-19 success over Italy's Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo.

Dalhausser and Lucena then claimed a 21-13, 21-17 win over Brazil’s Alvaro Filho and Vitor Felipe, who had reached the quarter-finals by beating top-seeded compatriots and defending champions Alison Cerutti and Bruno Oscar Schmidt 27-25, 16-21, 17-15.

Venezuela are one win away from securing a place at Rio 2016 after reaching the semi-finals at the FIVB World Continental Cup Olympic Qualification tournament ©FIVB
Venezuela are one win away from securing a place at Rio 2016 after reaching the semi-finals at the FIVB World Continental Cup Olympic Qualification tournament ©FIVB

Awaiting them in the last four are sixth seeds Aleksandrs Samoilovs and Janis Smedins of Latvia, who beat fifth seeds Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson of the US 21-17, 21-19 in the quarter-finals.

The other semi-final pits seventh-seeded Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira of Spain against 11th-seeded Evandro Goncalves and Pedro Solberg of Brazil.

Herrera and Gavira beat Italy’s Adrian Carambula and Alex Ranghieri 21-18, 21-18 in the quarter-finals, while Goncalves and Solberg overcame The Netherlands' Reinder Nummerdor and Christiaan Varenhorst 21-23, 21-18, 15-9.

At the FIVB  World Continental Cup Olympic Qualification tournament in Sochi, hosts Russia and Venezuela advanced to the semi-finals by defeating Mexico and China respectively.

Having lost their Pool A decider against Canada after a 15-6 golden set defeat, Russia went on to beat Mexico 2-0 in the quarter-finals. 

Youth Olympic champions Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Artem Yarzutkin defeated Juan Revuelta and Ricardo Galindo 21-17, 21-18, while veterans Nikita Liamin and Dmitri Barsouk followed up with an easy 21-12, 21-12 win over Jose Rubio and Josue Gaxiola.

Venezuela finished third in Pool A and went on to beat Pool B runners-up China 2-0 in the quarter-finals. 

Jesus Villafane and Jackson Henriquez beat Cheng Chen and Jian Bao 22-24, 21-16, 15-13 before Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic silver medallists Rolando "Peter" Hernandez and Jose "Tigrito" Gomez sealed victory with a 21-19, 21-16 win over Jian Li and Zhuoxin Li

Tomorrow, Russia will meet Belgium and Venezuela play Canada for a ticket to next month's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Russia and the Czech Republic completed the women’s semi-finals with the former eliminating Ukraine 2-0 and the latter claiming a 2-1 win over Vanuatu. 

Czech Republic meet China in tomorrow's first semi-final, followed by Russia's clash with Austria.