BESST 2.0 walk-in booth at #EuroBeachVolleyU22 draws attention to wellbeing and safe sport

This past month, when the 2026 edition  of the CEV #EuroBeachVolleyU22 was held in Madrid, athletes, coaches, referees, volunteers, and delegation members tried a short, interactive VR scenario designed to help them recognise and respond to situations that affect wellbeing in sport. 

The CEV operated a BESST 2.0 walk-in VR booth at the CEV U22 Beach Volleyball European Championship 2026, held from 10 to 13 September 2026 at Parque Deportivo Puerta de Hierro in Madrid. Over two operating days, on 10 and 11 September, the booth welcomed some 25 participants from across the event community: players, coaches, referees, volunteers, and other delegation members. Each visitor stepped into a short safe sport scenario in virtual reality, seen through the eyes of different people involved in the same situation. 

A ten-minute journey into someone else’s shoes 

The booth was designed to be easy to approach. Facilitators invited passers to try a short VR safe sport experience. Athletes were the priority audience, with coaches, team staff, officials and volunteers welcome whenever space allowed. 

Participant reactions reflected how important and how sensitive the topic is. Several visitors recognised the significance of the issues shown, while others described them as complex and took time to reflect. The insights gathered in Madrid will help shape future BESST 2.0 activations at future European sporting events. 

About BESST 2.0 

BESST 2.0 (Building European Safe Sport Together 2.0) is a three-year project co-funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme. It develops immersive virtual reality scenarios that help athletes and their support staff recognise, understand, and respond to psychological transgressive behaviour in sport, behaviour that can quietly become normal in high-performance settings. By placing users in realistic situations in a psychologically safe and controlled environment, the project fosters empathy, perspective-taking and awareness, and evaluates its impact through testing at European sporting events. 

The project is coordinated by European Olympic Academies, with partners including the University of Twente, IGNITX, EuroHockey, the Jiu Jitsu European Union, the Slovenian Psychologists’ Association, the Rudi Hiti Academy and the CEV. Its message is simple: What you do not see matters! 

Through its development programmes, the CEV works with its National Federations and partners to grow the sport and to make it safe, inclusive, and welcoming for everyone involved. 

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.